BEREC events 2015

BEREC Board of Regulators

The BEREC Board of Regulators held its final Plenary meeting of the year in London, UK, on 10 December, during which it elected its Board for 2016: Wilhelm Eschweiler (BNetzA) will be the Chair, and will be joined by Angelo Cardani (AGCOM) and Henk Don (ACM), as well as outgoing 2015 Chair Fátima Barros (ANACOM) and 2017 Chair-elect Sébastien Soriano (ARCEP).

BEREC had the pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Günther Oettinger, who addressed Europe’s regulators on the Commission’s vision for a digital single market.
Indeed, the main item of the Plenary’s agenda was the adoption of BEREC’s opinion on the review of the regulatory Framework, an important component of the Commission’s overall Digital Single Market strategy.

BEREC also adopted a report on the regulation of oligopolies which fed into its opinion on the Framework review, and a report on IP-based interconnection for voice services.
Following the recent adoption of the Telecoms Single Market Regulation, BEREC provided the Commission with input in relation to the wholesale international roaming market and “fair use” of international roaming services. BEREC also responded to a Commission questionnaire related to the evaluation of the Termination Rates Recommendation, and adopted a termination rates benchmarking report.
Following recent cooperation with the ERGP, BEREC adopted a joint BEREC-ERGP opinion on cross-border parcels delivery.

Finally, BEREC adopted its work programme for 2016, a year which it expects will be dominated by the start of legislative negotiations on the Framework review. A full list of the documents adopted for publication at the BEREC Plenary, including its second report on the implementation of its broadband common positions, is available here.The full meeting conclusions can be cosnulted on the right-hand side.

The day before the Plenary, on 9 December, it was organised an internal joint BEREC – FCC Workshop on net neutrality, which counted with the participation of Tom Wheeler, FCC’s Chair. This was the last BEREC Plenary meeting under the chairmanship of Fátima Barros, President of the Portuguese regulator, ANACOM.

BEREC Office Management Committee

The BEREC Office Management Committee (MC) held its 25th ordinary plenary meeting on 10 and 11 December 2015 in London, hosted by the Office of Communications (Ofcom) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK).

The BEREC Office MC agreed that the MC Chair for 2017 and the MC Vice-Chairs for 2016 should hold the same positions in the BEREC Board of Regulators.

The MC approved for publication the following documents:

The MC approved for publication and implementation the following documents:

• Decision on the replacement of the establishment plan for the financial year 2015;
• BEREC Office Budget and Establishment Plan for 2016.

The MC took note of the information provided in the following documents:

• Explanatory Note on transfers by the Administrative Manager (AM) in the BEREC Office Budget 2015 in July-September 2015;
• 2015 BEREC Office Quarterly Report on operation and budget execution.

The full meeting conclusions can be cosnulted herewith.