BEREC HOLDS ITS SECOND PLENARY MEETING

The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications held its second plenary meeting, hosted by the French Regulator, in Paris on 25th and 26th of February 2010. The meeting approved a number of documents for publication and reviewed progress on additional workstreams in anticipation of the final Work Programme which is subject to a public consultation which closed on 2 March.

In addition, the meeting agreed to the publication of the vacancy notice for the position of Administrative Manager for the BEREC Office. This notice is published in the Official Journal today. It was also agreed to commence the recruitment process for the positions of Head of Administration and Finance and Financial Assistant.

The documents approved for publication were:

NGA – Implementation Issues and Wholesale Products. This report is a follow-up to the ERG Common Position on NGA and describes the situation in terms of the roll-out scenarios, product definitions and regulatory issues at end 2009 in respect of the different wholesale products based on the ladder of investment. It outlines some key issues that regulators and industry must address in order to put in place the appropriate mechanisms to progress the development of NGA, in the context of the new EU Regulatory Framework, and to be able to use appropriately the additional powers given to NRAs under the new Art. 12.4 Framework Directive.

The meeting also received a report on the issue of self-supply in the context of market analysis with a focus on Market 5 (Wholesale Broadband Market). The Report’s primary focus is on how NRAs have taken self-supply issues into account.

Two reports on International Roaming were approved. The first report deals with the state of compliance with the new requirements which came into effect in July 2009. The  second report addresses the availability of alternative roaming tariffs. Both Reports will feed into BEREC’s input to the Commission’s interim review on the functioning of the Regulation.

The meeting also agreed to publish the report on the consultation on the ERG report on business connectivity services.

Finally, the 2009 ERG Annual Report was adopted at the meeting. It has been submitted to the European Commission who will forward it to the European Parliament and Council.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the Office were established by the Regulation (EC) No. 1211/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009. BEREC is comprised of a Board of Regulators consisting of Heads of 27 national regulatory authorities (NRAs). The EU Commission, EFTA States (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein and three EU candidate States (Turkey, Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) participate as observers to the Board of Regulators. The roles and tasks of BEREC are set out in articles 2 and 3 of the Regulation. The Office is a Community Body established by the same Regulation in order to provide professional and administrative support to BEREC.

For more information please contact:

[email protected] Tel +32 (0)2 210 60 70 - Website www.irg.eu

[email protected] Tel +32 (0) 2 29 56462 –Website http://erg.ec.europa.eu