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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 October 2017
This chapter considers the evolving institutional responses to the challenge of regulating telecoms in the EU, taking in the Commission’s push for creating an EU agency versus the resilience of the transnationally networked model, which is usually attributed to the Member States’ sovereignty reflex. Were recent negotiations over the reform of the Regulatory Framework for telecoms, concluded in 2009, simply a turf-war in which the Commission sought to extend the EU’s role against resistance from the Member States, or did the national telecoms regulators and their existing transnational network influence the eventual compromise to retain the soft law, networked model, albeit with some hardening? Characterised as a classic integration struggle, the Member States’ intergovernmental instincts were pitched against the Commission’s supranational instincts and its preference for instruments of control premised on the centralised exercise of hierarchical power. But this chapter paints a more fine-grained picture of the negotiation’s dynamics and especially the influence of the national regulatory authorities (NRAs) and their existing transnational network; a community of expertise that stood to have its role either strengthened or diminished in the revised institutional architecture. In doing so, the chapter moves beyond orthodox (intergovernmental and neofunctionalist) accounts of these dynamics to take an institutionalist approach that is better suited to analysing the EU as a mature system of governance.
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4 In 1998, this was merged with the European Interconnect Forum to form the European Telecommunications Platform.
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19 V Reding letter to the ERG, 6 December 2007.
20 V Reding, ‘The Review 2006 of EU Telecom Rules: Strengthening Competition and Completing the Internal Market’, a speech at the annual meeting of BITKOM, Brussels, Bibliothèque Solvay, 27 June 2006. A closer parallel is in fact the European Medicines Agency, which is not a creature of the treaties but of a humble Regulation, and it works together with its national counterparts to foster scientific excellence in the evaluation and supervision of medicines. See also the Financial Times (16 November 2006).
21 V Reding, Speech to the European Parliament, Plenary session, 2 September 2008.
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23 Press Release IP/07/237 of 26 February 2007.
24 Malcolm Harbour MEP, EurActiv.com, 14 November 2007.
25 Speech to the ERG, 8 February 2006.
26 Commission Communication COM (2007) 697 final and COM (2007) 699 final; see also Commission (EC) ‘On the Review of the EU Regulatory Framework’ (Communication) COM (2006) 334 final, together with ‘Proposed Changes’ (SEC (2006) 816) and ‘Impact Assessment’ (SEC (2006) 817); the consultations are available at www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/library.
27 Regulation 1211/2009 establishing the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the Office, 25 November 2007 (hereafter, BEREC Regulation).
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32 Art 2(4), BEREC Regulation.
33 Art 2(5), BEREC Regulation.
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35 Recital 11, BEREC Regulation.
36 Art 5(1), BEREC Regulation.
37 Art 9(1), Rules of Procedures of the Board of Regulators as revised in May 2011, BoR (11) 23.
38 Art 7(3) and 7a(1), Framework Directive.
39 Art 7a(3), (5), Framework Directive.
40 Art 7a(7), Framework Directive.
41 Art 7(5), Framework Directive.
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46 The trail of correspondence between the ERG and Commission from 2006 through to December 2007 is available at www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/tomorrow/erg_discussion/index_en.htm.
47 ERG letter to V Reding, 27 February 2007.
48 ERG letter to V Reding, 6 November 2007.
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52 Reported in the Financial Times (30 October 2007).
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56 Reported in www.europeanvoice.com, 6 March 2008.
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58 Reported in www.theparliament.com, 28 April 2008.
59 2835th Council meeting on Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, 29–30 November and 3 December 2007, Press Release 15891/07 (Presse 274); 2877th Council meeting on Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, 12–13 June 2008, Press Release 10410/08 (Presse 165).
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63 Commission (EC), ‘European Agencies: The Way Forward’, MEMO/08/159, 11 March 2008.
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67 ITRE Committee, ‘Report on the Framework Directive’, A6-0321/2008, 22 July 2008, p 109.
68 ITRE Committee, ‘Report on the Proposal for a Regulation establishing EECMA’, A6-0316/2008, 17 July 2008, p 90; European Parliament, ‘Legislative Resolution on the Proposal for a Regulation establishing EECMA’, 24 September 2008, P6_TA-PROV(2008) 0450, Amendment 37.
69 2907th Council meeting on Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, 27 November 2008, Press Release 16326/1/08 (Presse 345), pp 10–11.
70 COREPER meeting on 20 February 2009, recorded in Council Presidency Meeting Document DS 167/09 of 26 February 2009.
71 Council Common Position on the Framework Directive, 16496/08, 9 February 2009; 2923rd Council meeting on Education, Youth and Culture, 16 February 2009, Press Release 6071/09 (Presse 33).
72 V Reding speech to the European Parliament, Plenary session, 2 September 2008.
73 E Richards, Speech to the Communications and Competition Law Conference, Brussels, 20 October 2008.
74 European Parliament, ‘Position on the BEREC Regulation’, adopted at Second Reading, 6 May 2009, EP-PE_TC2-COD(2007)0249.
75 European Parliament, ‘Legislative Resolution on the Council Common Position on the Framework Directive’, adopted at Second Reading, 6 May 2009, P6_TA(2009)0361.
76 Meeting Document DS 167/09 of 26 February2009.
77 European Parliament, ‘Position on the BEREC Regulation’, adopted at Second Reading, 6 May 2009, EP-PE_TC2COD(2007)0249; European Parliament, ‘Legislative Resolution on the Council Common Position on the Framework Directive’, adopted at Second Reading, 6 May 2009, P6_TA(2009)0361.
78 Progress Report from COREPER to Council on the Proposal for a Regulation establishing EECMA, 6 June 2008, 10337/08, p 2; 2877th Council meeting on Transport, Telecommunications and Energy, 12 13 June 2008, Press Release 10410/08 (Presse 165), p 9.
79 Exemplary for the supranational and intergovernmental theoretical frame respectively: Martens, M, ‘Administrative Integration through the Back Door? The Role and Influence of the European Commission in Transgovernmental Networks within the Environmental Policy Field’ (2008) 30(5) European Integration 635 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McNamara, K, ‘Rational Fictions: Central Bank Independence and the Social Logic of Delegation’ (2002) 25(1) Western European Politics 47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.