Legislative Observatory
European Parliament
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Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the Office. 'Telecoms Package'

2007/0249(COD)

This Commission Staff Working Document responds to the requirement, under Article 25 of the BEREC Regulation, for the Commission to publish an evaluation report on the experience acquired with the operation of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and its Office within three years of the effective start of operations. BEREC was established as a result of the review of the EU’s e-communications regulatory framework in 2009.

The report also examines how efficiently, based on the experience so far, BEREC has succeeded in its role and thus contributed to the development of the internal market for electronic communications. It thus assesses, in particular, the working practices, as well as the organisation of BEREC and its Office, as well as its remit and, where appropriate, makes recommendations for improvements.

The report’s main conclusions are as follows:

Whilst BEREC is a recently created Body, the report already contains some insights and suggestions on how further to improve its role and efficiency. It will therefore be a valuable input to the Commission’s forthcoming reflections on how to deepen the internal market in this area.

  • Overall positive verdict on BEREC’s functioning: the report considers that BEREC is functioning well overall. This is particularly the case through its opinions under the Article 7/7a procedure (of Directive 2002/21/EC – the Framework Directive on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services).
  • The report also credits BEREC for providing useful input on international roaming, which was instrumental for the successful negotiations on the Roaming Regulation, as well as for the work it has undertaken on net neutrality.

Nevertheless, the evaluation also shows that there is still room for improvement in the BEREC set-up: whereas BEREC is making efforts to improve the functioning of the internal market, the fact that it is composed of National Regulatory Authorities means that aligning European objectives with national views and considerations can prove challenging.