Press release - BEREC elects new Chair 2021 and signs Memorandum of Understanding with the International Telecommunication Union

Document number: BoR (19) 215

Document date: 10-10-2019

Date of registration: 10-10-2019

Document type:
Author: BEREC

Today BEREC Chair Jeremy Godfrey (ComReg, Ireland), together with the incoming Chair for 2020 Dan Sjöblom and Co-Chairs of the Open Internet Working Group, presented the outcomes of the 40th Board of Regulators ordinary plenary meeting.

During the ordinary plenary meeting the BEREC Board of Regulators elected the BEREC Chair for 2021 Michel Van Bellinghen – the Chairman of the Council of Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT).  In 2020, Michel Van Bellinghen will serve as a Vice-Chair and the incoming BEREC Chair 2021. The other elected Vice-Chairs are Monika Karas (NMHH, Hungary) and Tonko Obuljen (HAKOM, Croatia) together with Jeremy Godfrey (ComReg, Ireland) as the outgoing BEREC Chair. They will support Dan Sjöblom (PTS, Sweden), who will be the BEREC Chair 2020. The BEREC Chair and Vice-Chairs together with the representative of participants without voting rights - Sasho Dimitrijoski (AEC, The Republic of North Macedonia) will compose the Mini-Board.

During the public debriefing, the incoming BEREC Chair Dan Sjöblom introduced the draft BEREC Work Programme for the next year and invited stakeholders to be active and send their contributions to the public consultation on the draft document.

The BEREC Chair together with the Co-Chairs of the Open Internet Working Group gave an overview of the subjects discussed at the latest meeting of the Board of Regulators. This included the update of the BEREC Guidelines on the implementation of the Open Internet Regulation, implementation of Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 and the BEREC Net Neutrality Guidelines.  

Mr. Godfrey also launched six public consultations on the following documents:

Mr. Godfrey also informed about the extension of BEREC’s international cooperation with EaPeReg (the organization of the national regulatory authorities (NRA) for the electronic communications sector of the Eastern Partnership countries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine) for a further two years by signing a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). During the plenary meeting, Mr Godfrey, on behalf of BEREC, also signed an MoU with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The signed document foresees the establishment of the high-level framework cooperation in the area of electronic communications between BEREC and ITU. The overall objective of the established cooperation is to bring the benefits of internet and communication technologies to people worldwide and particularly in Europe.

A full list of public documents adopted at the 40th ordinary plenary meeting is available on the BEREC website. The 41st BEREC ordinary plenary meeting will take place on 5-6 December 2019 in Malta.