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PROGRESS TOWARDS A EUROPEAN DIGITAL SINGLE MARKET IN 2014
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exerted by the different stakeholders) that the
Commission’s proposal for a Regulation has not
been approved yet. It has subsequently been
amended by the European Parliament and is
currently the subject of debate in the Council.
The new measures proposed by this regulation
are explained below.
Single EU authorisation
Despite continuous talk of the benefits that
could flow from a single market, telecommuni-
cations operators have to apply for licences in
each of the Member States in which they wish
to provide services. This contradiction between
the desired outcomes and the administrative re-
ality has led to the development of the concept
of a single authorisation, making possible for an
operator to provide services in all Member
States without having to apply for license on a
state by state basis.
The purpose of this measure was to reduce
the barriers to entry to national markets, pre-
venting states from obstructing the entrance of
competitors by imposing different licence re-
quirements. The single EU authorisation, accom-
panied by the introduction of European virtual
access products, is designed to be a harmoniza-
tion process that would reduce the administra-
tive load and thus the costs to operators.
This proposal would also favour the provi-
sion of transnational services, and thus the ap-
pearance of pan-European operators able to
compete globally and invest in infrastructure
due to their increased investment capacities and
economies of scale. The elimination of national
fragmentation by these operators would also
make it possible to offer better services and to
reduce the price paid for them. This concept
was eliminated by the European Parliament.
European virtual access products
The European Commission Regulation proposes
the creation of standardized Europe-wide virtual
access products. This measure, together with the
single EU authorisation, would make it possible
to reduce barriers to entry to national markets as
it would dramatically reduce the administrative
requirements. However, this could also be seen
as a threat to European operators, as the ap-
proval of such measures would make it possible
for an entrant operator to provide services
throughout the European Union very easily, sim-
ply by establishing itself in one Member State.
Roaming services
Roaming was one of the central measures of
this Regulation. Commissioner Neelie Kroes has
repeated on several occasions the need to elim-
inate this difference between tariffs, as it makes
no sense to speak of a single market when there
are differences between the prices paid by citi-
zens depending on which Member State they
are in. This is one of the most popular measures,
because citizens also want the elimination of
roaming so that they don’t have to switch their
phones off while travelling for fear of running
up huge bills while using roaming services.
The complete elimination of roaming would
be the final step in the glidepath that has grad-
ually reduced the cost of providing these ser-
vices during recent years as a result of Roaming
Regulations I, II and III. At present, following the
latest reduction in tariffs, the maximum amount
that users can be charged for roaming are:
E
0.19 per minute for making calls,
E
0.05 per
minute for receiving calls,
E
0.06 for sending a
SMS and
E
0.20 per MB of data.
The Commission proposed the elimination of
the difference between roaming and domestic