BEREC response on the targeted public consultation on the evaluation of the state aid rules for the deployment of broadband networks

On 8 September 2020 the European Commission (DG COMP) launched a targeted public consultation on the evaluation of the state aid rules for the deployment of broadband networks. The EU rules for public spending on the deployment of broadband infrastructure are (i) the 2013 Broadband Guidelines (EU State Aid Guidelines) and (ii) the relevant parts of the General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER) (2014) and taken together these EU rules are referred to in this targetd consultation as ‘the state aid rules for the deployment of broadband infrastructure. The consultation deadline is 5 Januaray 2021, the questionnaire is comprised of 152 questions assigned to 13 sections and it has to be submitted to the European Commission by an electronic form which imposes some restrcitions (multiple choise questions and a chracters limit). The targeted consultation is not exclusively aimed at NRA's or BEREC, but also at other stakeholders. Therefore, BEREC focusses on those questions where NRAs have specific experiences made with the application of state aid rules and/or which can be answered based on the experiences gained in sector regulation, in particular with regard to market analysis, wholesale access products and pricing principles. The original questionnaire can be found in the annex (part II of the document).