BEREC event 2014

BEREC held its 21st meeting on 4 and 5 December 2014 in Brussels (Belgium), hosted by the BEREC Office. The plenary meeting was chaired by the BEREC Chair 2014, Mr Göran Marby, Director-General of PTS (Sweden).

The meeting was divided into 2 parts, namely: meeting of the Board of Regulators and meeting of the Management Committee of the BEREC Office. The meeting was preceded by Heads’ workshops on 3 December 2014 dedicated to roaming and the forthcoming review of the EU Regulatory Framework for electronic communication networks and services.

The main results of the meeting are as follows:

Board of Regulators (BoR)

I.          Elections of BEREC Chair for 2016 and Vice-chairs for 2015

The BoR agreed that the MC Chair for 2016 and the MC Vice-Chairs for 2015 should hold the same positions in the BEREC Board of Regulators (BoR), to be referred to respectively as ‘BEREC Chair 2016’ and ‘BEREC Vice-Chairs 2015’.

The BoR elected Mr Wilhelm Eschweiler, Vice-President of BNetzA (Germany), as BEREC Chair 2016 and the following BEREC Vice-Chairs 2015:

-               Ms Lidia Kozłowska – Vice-President of UKE (Poland);

-               Mr Kevin O’Brien – Chairperson of ComReg (Ireland).

According to the Rules of Procedure the elected Chair 2016 and the Outgoing Chair 2014 – Mr Göran Marby (PTS), must serve one year as Vice-Chairs in 2015 to support the BEREC Chair 2015, Dr Fátima Barros (ANACOM), who was elected Chair 2015 at the 17^th BoR meeting (5-6 December 2014, Budapest).

II.         Documents approved for publication

The BoR approved for publication the following documents:

–          BEREC Strategy 2015-2017 and the Report on the outcome of the public consultation (PC) on the draft Strategy;

–          BEREC Work Programme (WP) 2015 and the Report on the outcome of the PC on the draft WP;

–          BoR Decision on BEREC Expert Working Groups (EWGs);

–          BEREC Guidance on the regulatory accounting approach to the economic replicability test (ex-ante margin squeeze tests) and the Report on the outcome of the PC on the draft Guidance;

–          Amended BoR Rules of Procedure;

–          BEREC Report on transparency and comparability of different roaming tariffs;

–          BEREC Monitoring Report on the implementation of the BEREC Common Positions on WLA, WBA and WLL – Phase I;

–          BEREC Termination Rates Benchmark Snapshot (as of July 2014);

–          BEREC Questions to stakeholders for the preparation of the BEREC Report on oligopoly analysis and regulation.

III.        Documents approved for submission to the Commission

The BoR approved for submission to the Commission the BEREC Input to the Commission request for assessing the state of the wholesale roaming market and defining the fair use criteria for retail roaming services in the context of the European Parliament proposal “Roam Like At Home” (RLAH).

IV.       Documents approved for internal use

The BoR approved for internal use the following documents:

–          BEREC Best Practices regarding internet access in the consumer market;

–          BEREC MTR Benchmark (as of July 2014) - Internal Report;

–          BEREC SMS benchmark (as of July 2013) - Internal Report;

–          BEREC cross-border SMS termination Report;

–          BEREC Report on M2M services;

–          BEREC Internal Report on telecommunications issues in smart grids;

–          Project Requirement Definition (PRD) documents for the implementation of the BEREC 2015 WP.

V.        Discussion on other important topics:

The BoR discussed the future of roaming in the light of the on-going discussions by the co-legislator on the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) initiative and decided to establish an Ad Hoc Group composed of Heads to work in connection with the International Roaming EWG in order to prepare a draft BEREC Opinion on roaming, which will be submitted to the BoR for approval by electronic voting procedure by 18 December 2014. The Ad Hoc Group will be chaired by the BEREC Vice-chair from HAKOM.

VI.       Other important developments

BEREC and the Group of Eastern Partnership Regulators for Electronic Communications Networks and Services (EaPeReg Network) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on their future cooperation. In the light of the signed MoU, both sides discussed their future cooperation with specific emphasis on the activities to be performed in 2015.

BEREC Office Management Committee (MC)

The BEREC Office MC discussed current issues related to the functioning of the BEREC Office. The MC approved for publication and implementation a Decision to approve the establishment of a reserve list for the post of Financial and Accounting Assistant (TA – Grade AST3) of the BEREC Office.

The MC held an orientation debate on the multiannual programming outlook of the BEREC Officefor the period 2016-2018. The outcome of the debate will be used by the BEREC Office for the preparation of the BEREC Office Multiannual staff policy plan for 2016-2018 and the draft BEREC Office Budget for 2016, which will be submitted to the MC for approval by electronic voting in January 2015.

The MC took note of the following information:

-        Report on the BEREC Office operation January – September 2014 (key activities, budget execution and human resources management);

-        Information on the administrative complaints against BEREC Office brought before the Civil Service Tribunal by a former staff member,

-        Information on the transfers carried out by the Administrative Manager (AM) in the BEREC Office Budget 2014 in July-September 2014.

Next meeting

The next BoR meeting will take place on 26 and 27 February 2015 in Berne (Switzerland) and will be organised by the ComCom and BAKOM.The meeting will be preceded byaHeads’ workshop on market analysis in oligopolistic situations and mergers.