Tag: EU Telcos Single Market Regulation

Today, the European Parliament adopted the Telecoms Single Market (TSM) regulation, a piece of legislation that has the potential to bring Net Neutrality to all 28 EU member states.

Earlier this year, the three major European institutions reached an agreement in the Telecoms Single Market trialogue, where lawmakers made several ambitious promises. Among them was the promise to enshrine Net Neutrality rules concretely into EU law. The aim: to guarantee Europeans the “most comprehensive open internet rules,” and to prevent fragmenting equitable cross-border internet services that are in a single market. However, as it stands, the legislation is not yet clear enough to realize these grand ambitions.

Europe and the U.S. are nearing the finish line in a neck-and-neck race to enshrine net neutrality into law, and support the rights of some 800 million users.

Today, Access together with several NGOs, consumer groups, and industry representatives sent an open letter to the Council of the European Union, calling for Telecoms ministers to support strong net neutrality rules in the E.U.. The Council is currently reviewing the proposal of the Telecoms Single Market Regulation, voted on by the European Parliament in April.

Today the European Parliament voted on the European Telecoms Single Market proposal, a major legislative achievement protecting net neutrality that will have a crucial impact on how European users experience the internet for generations.

After six months of negotiations, the European Parliament will finally vote on the proposal for a Telecoms Single Market in one week. This proposal was initially designed to deliver the promise of enshrining net neutrality as law across Europe. Yet unless the European Parliament rises to the challenge next week, they may actually end up undermining net neutrality net through unclear and confusing legislation.

Last Thursday, after two years of delay, the European Commission published a proposal for the Regulation of the Telecom Single Market that promises Net Neutrality but delivers just the opposite.