BEREC Analysis Monitoring of the Joint Statement agreed between Ukraine and EU Operators

Following the ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine launched by Russia on 24 February 2022, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has closely monitored the telecommunications sector’s response to the crisis and welcomed the measures voluntarily provided by EU operators. To gain a comprehensive understanding of what has been implemented by operators, BEREC started to collect information from NRAs and operators already in March 2022. In May 2022 and June 2023, BEREC continued with a second and third data collection exercise, with the aim of gathering more detailed information covering not only the retail measures applied by European Economic Area (EEA) and Ukrainian (UA) operators but also the relevant wholesale measures agreed in the Joint Statement.

This Joint Statement, which was first signed in April 2022 and several times renewed, most recently in January 2024, establishes a stable framework to help people fleeing the war against Ukraine stay in touch with family and friends back home and maintain access to information. The measures include affordable or free calls, measures to cover calls to fixed line numbers in Ukraine and ensure sustainable inter-operator prices, which allow operators to provide consumers with cross-border calls at an affordable rate. BEREC and the Ukrainian National Regulatory Authority were tasked with monitoring the implementation of the agreed measures and therefore launched this fourth round of data collection.