A. Definition of Telecommunications Sector

1

The telecommunications sector provides telecommunications and related services for voice transmission and transmission of datas, texts, sounds and videos wired or wireless. The sector is characterized by rapid structural developments (“historical” operators facing new competitors) and also by developments of supply and demand, with the main drivers of change that are technological developments (Internet mobile, computers, networks fiber), the liberalization of trade, deregulation and privatization.

B. Legal Basis for EU to Regulate Telecommunications Sector

2

In the area of telecommunications law, the EU has a concurrent competence with its 27 Member States. This regulatory right is conferred upon the EU based on three articles of the TFEU: Art. 4 para. 2 a, 26, and 114.  Art. 4, para. 2a states that “shared competence between the Union and the Member States applies in the following principal areas: (a) internal market.”  In Art. 26 para. 2 TFEU, the internal market is defined as an “area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital is ensured in accordance with the provisions of the Treaties.”  Telecommunications is a service subject to the rules of the internal market.  Art. 114 para. 1 TFEU lays out the right of the EU, through the Commission, to legislate based on this right to regulate the service of Telecommunications within the internal market: “The European Parliament and Council shall…adopt the measures for the approximation of the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administration action in Member States which have as their object the establishment and functioning of the internal market.”

outgoing links
incoming-links