BEREC events 2020

On 19 October 2020, BEREC held its annual Stakeholder Forum to exchange ideas with stakeholders on the BEREC work and plans, as well as to discuss topics relevant to the telecommunications market.

The Forum was kicked-off with the introductory remarks by the European Commissioner for Internal market - Thierry Breton. Among others, his responsibilities lie within leading the work of a new Digital Services Act for the reinforcement of the European Single Market for digital services, to clarify obligations of online platforms and, give smaller businesses legal clarity and a level playing field.

Michel Van Bellinghen, the incoming Chair of BEREC, introduced the Work Programme for the upcoming year, whilst the current BEREC Chair Dan Sjoblom, along with the future perspectives,  elaborated on the perspectives of the telecommunications in handling the COVID-19 crisis.

The first part of the event was wrapped up with the questions and answers session. The moderator Philippe Defraigne (Cullen International) facilitated stakeholders’ engagement with the BEREC Chairs, by taking on board both sent-in as well as live questions.

Earlier this year, BEREC has already outlined the main topic of the Stakeholder Forum, namely - regulation of digital platforms. Focusing on the regulatory issues and collaboration between regulators, the Global Competition of Law and Policy professor at the G. Washington University Law School William E. Kovacic gave a keynote speech. The discussion on the regulation of digital platforms  followed with the distinguished speakers - Ursula Pachl (BEUC),  Benedikt Blomeyer (Allied for Startups), Kay Jebelli  (CCIA Europe), Luc Hindryckx (ECTA) and Lise Fuhr (ETNO). Matthew Newman (Mlex) moderated the panel discussion. The closing remarks on the regulation of digital platforms were presented by Roberto Viola, General-Director of the DG CONNECT, EC. 
 

Watch the recorded video of the 8th BEREC Stakeholder Forum. The recorded video contains closed captions (cc).

To ensure the accessibility, the transcript of the event is available here.