New governance as political compromise in European telecommunications: the amended European Union electronic communications regulatory framework

This paper explores the regulatory character of key parts of the latest incarnation of the EU telecommunications regulatory package, finalised at the end of 2009. Its core argument is that whilst the broad parameters of the modified Electronic Communications Regulatory Framework are couched in traditional ‘hard’ legal measures of the EU system, in the shape of Directives and a Regulation, in practice the EU’s influence in the regulation of telecommunications across its Members’ territories is likely to be much looser and bears many hallmarks of ‘softer’ or so-called ‘new’ governance. Here voluntarism, opinion-giving, advice taking and the pursuit of best practice are key features of the institutional and operational features of the revised regulatory system. The paper illustrates this argument through an analysis of institution and process: the new Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), on the one hand, and the agreement reached in the new package on regulatory remedies, on the other. It argues that both BEREC and the new regulatory remedies process reflect European political compromises, due to the still inter-national character of European telecommunications, as much as the desire to promote flexibility and responsiveness in regulatory decision making