If Europe’s national regulators are to avoid being challenged by a pan-European regulatory authority, they will have to prove wrong those that contend they lack consistency and independence, said the European Commission Directorate General-13’s director of telecommunications, trans-European networks and services. The national regulators are on trial; new entrants will be watching them in the coming months to see if they issue fast, fair and transparent decisions. If they can’t do that, the ca lls for a pan-European regulatory authority will become even stronger than they are now, said Nicholas Argyris at a recent conference here sponsored by IBC Technical Services Ltd, Digital Equipment Corp and Public Network magazine. For their part, said a panel of regulators from Switzerland, Finland, Sweden and Italy at the Telecoms Competition in Europe conference, a pan-European regulator would in principle defeat the trend toward deregulation, adding that it is too early to determine wheth er Europe needs one. A European regulator would not have the same understanding of local market issues [as the national regulator]. Our target should be full deregulation instead of building new regulatory authorities, said Juhani Korpela, secreta ry general of Finland’s Ministry of Transport & Communication. In particular, said Jerker Torngren, principal lawyer for European Union affairs at the National Post & Telecommunications Agency in Sweden, the knowledge to resolve disputes over technical and marketing issues exists only locally. Instead of establishing a pan-European policy implementor, the panel was unanimously in favor of measures to strengthen the implementation of the European Union’s policy framework directives in each me mber state. The problem today is that policy directives are not applied in the same way in France as they are in Switzerland or Germany. We have to have the same competitive rules; it’s no good if everyone just implements them to suit themselves, said Marc Furrer, chief executive for the Swiss Federal Office of Communications. One solution, said Romano Righetti, general director for Italy’s Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications, would be more collaboration between national regulators to ens ure that European Union policy directives are implemented universally. The idea was echoed by several other regulatory representatives. In a vote, none of the conference attendees were in favor of a pan-European Office of Telecommunications-like policy maker-enforcer, but were unanimously for keeping or creating ones at the national level.
Neither did anyone believe Europe would need a pan-European regulator in, say, 15 years, if everything were working properly. Given the pan-European nature of their ultimate service offerings, new market entrants like Hermes Europe Railtel BV and MFS Communications Co have great need for pan-European regulatory schemes, and neither company expressed certainty that such an institution would be the answer. Said Hartmut Seibel, Hermes regulatory and legal counsel in Hoeilaart, Belgium, Nationa l regulators are not always equipped to deal with issues arising from pan-European services. A pan-European institute would be better on that, but would be further away from the consumer, which is not good. It’s simply too early to raise this question, since the emerging [regulatory] frameworks are just being put in place. The answer to whether we need such an institution will evolve in the future. Acknowledging that nobody in Europe is addressing the logistics and mechanisms to make the European Union directives work, Hermes Director of Marketing & Sales, Gerard Caccapolo, added that a pan-European regulator would likely be limited in its ability to enforce policy. Caccapolo agreed with MFS chief executive and presid-ent Michael Sto rey that pan-European interconnect will happen only if the big [industry] players make it work. Caccapolo added that interconnect would be likely driven by three or four dominant industry alliances rather than a regulator. Said Storey: Everyone is moaning about not being able to get interconnect agreements. A pan-European regulator might be one solution, but I don’t really believe it can contribute more to the process than a pragmatic business negotiating with another pragmatic business. The key, he said, lies in negotiation tactics with incumbent operators. A monopolist is out to protect his business, and he is not going to make it easy for people to steal his business. [Interconnect] has to be in his interest; you have to create a commercial relationship instead of just paying for the use of the network. Or, you have to define the end-game for him – how he sees his business in 10 years – and determine how to micro-manage his market share down. You have to elevate the horizon for the PTO, he explained. Executives from some start-up companies were downright hostile to the idea of a pan-European regulator, much more so than were the multinational carriers. Malcolm Taylor, vice-president of regulatory affairs for Telewest Communications Group Plc, UK, explained why: None of the market entrants have the resources to deal with lots of regulatory schemes, so the more regulations there are, the more the incumbents will be able to capture.
Marsha Johnstone
