IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION INTO THE PROPOSED REGULATION OF SOME REGIONAL FIBRE NETWORKS IN DENMARK

On 1 February the European Commission lifted its remaining reservations regarding a proposed regulation of some regional fibre networks in Denmark. The decision came after the Danish regulator partially withdrew the notified draft measures, addressing the Commission’s main concerns.

More information can be found here.

Next steps: The Commission’s decision will be available online soon.

Background

On 3 November 2021 the Danish national regulatory authority (DBA) had identified 21 geographic markets in Denmark, corresponding to different electricity supply areas in the country. DBA found 17 of these 21 markets not to be competitive and 14 different operators (including 7 wholesale only operators) were found to have significant market power (SMP). With regard to these 14 operators, DBA proposed to impose regulatory obligations, or to make binding the commitments proposed by some of these operators. In particular, DBA proposed to impose, on the operator Aura, access, price control (cost orientation), non-discrimination and transparency obligations.

On 2 December 2021, the Commission issued its preliminary assessment of DBA’s draft measures and expressed serious doubts with regards to 5 geographic markets.

CHIPS ACT. DATA ACT. CYBER RESILIENCE ACT.

The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen held a keynote speech at the "Masters of Digital 2022" event in which she outlined some of the upcoming legislative plans of the Commission.

 Chips Act

The President gave details on the Commission's forthcoming proposal on Europe's first-ever Chips Act.

According to the EU ambition, by 2030 20% of the world's microchips production should be in Europe. The upcoming European Chips Act aims at five areas: investing in research, industrial innovation, production capacity, supporting smaller and innovative companies and focusing on supply chains.

Next steps: The Commission will present the proposal on the Chips Act next week.

Data Act

The Commission will also present the Data Act which will give businesses and individuals more control over the data they produce while using a connected device, and more control over how their data are processed.

Next steps: The Commission will present the proposal on the Data Act next month.

In addition to the above the European Commission presented a new study which maps and estimates the volume of data flowing to main cloud infrastructures across the 27 Member States, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

More information can be found here.

However, EURACTIV published a leaked information on the upcoming Data Act. According to their information, the legislative proposal will contain rules regarding the right to access, the unfair contractual obligations, the public sector access, the cloud switching and interoperability.

Cyber Resilience Act

The European Commission will also come with a Cyber Resilience Act which will establish common security standards for all connected devices in Europe.

The full speech can be found here.

Next steps: The Commission will present the proposal on the Cyber Resilience Act later this year.

RADIO SPECTRUM POLICY GROUP MEETING

Next week the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) will hold its 57th meeting with the following agenda:

Update on Commission initiatives; Update from the Chair on activities since the last meeting;  5G pioneer bands: State of play on awards;  Peer Review and Member State cooperation on authorisations and awards; RSPG Sub group on "Good offices"; RSPG Sub Group on the WRC; RSPG Work Programme 2022-2023  and RSPG Sub Groups.

More information can be found here.

Date of the meeting: 9 February 2022.

CREATIVE EUROPE MEDIA 2022

On 3 February the European Commission published the first three calls for proposal under the framework of the Creative Europe Media 2022: video games and immersive content development, networks of European festivals and MEDIA 360°tailored for supporting existing industries, new talents and markets as well as promoting cooperation among different sectors.

The total EU funding available for this programme for 2022 is  €226 million.

The press release can be found here.

NEW STANDARTISATION STRATEGY

On  2 February the European Commission presented a new Standartisation Strategy which aims to outline the EU's approach to standards within the Single Market as well as globally. The Strategy proposes five key actions:

• Anticipating, prioritising and addressing the standardisation needs in strategic areas.
• Improving the governance and integrity of the European standardisation system.
• Enhancing the European leadership in global standards.
• Supporting the innovations.
• Enabling the next generation of standardisation experts.

The press release can be found here.