At a time of the rise of new technologies, Europe is concerned about the fragmentation of its telecoms market, fragmented between a hundred national operators, when the United States and China only have three major ones each. . Too small, European players risk not being able to keep up with the pace of investments imposed by the innovations of digital giants, to the detriment of the competitiveness of the European Union. The heterogeneity of national regulations also penalizes the deployment of new services on a European scale: for example, how can we set up a network for autonomous cars if the technical rules change when we cross a border?
Meeting on Tuesday, December 5 in Brussels, the telecoms ministers of the member states said they were ready to take the subject head on. “They studied the measures that should be promoted in the telecommunications market to foster a sustainable and secure digital environment and guarantee the digital sovereignty and independence of the EU”, indicates their joint statement. They salute about it “the Commission’s work program for 2024” Who “will prepare the ground for possible political and regulatory actions on digital networks and infrastructure”.
Harmonization of rules
After a public consultation carried out in the fallthe Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, promises a white paper on the subject by the middle of the first quarter of 2024. “This will allow us to have a clearer vision”explained Mr. Breton at the end of the council of telecoms ministers, convinced of the “very strong alignment of member states to come to an agreement” to write a Digital Networks Act (DNA).
France is clearly pushing for the creation of European giants. “I support the idea of harmonization of European rules to facilitate the concentration of the telecoms market and allow operators to evolve in a broader market”declares Jean-Noël Barrot, the French Minister for Digital and Telecoms, who says “encourage the Commission to present all measures likely to unify the telecoms market so that meaningful mergers can take place”.
In the past, Orange and Deutsche Telekom have discussed a merger on several occasions, more or less seriously. But the file never moved forward, blocked by questions of governance and by doubts about the synergies that such a cross-border marriage would offer. The two operators simply created, in 2011, a joint company, called BuyIn, to pool their equipment purchases and save money.
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