Registration for the 9th BEREC Stakeholder Forum is open

09 March 2021

On 1 April 2021, BEREC will hold its annual Stakeholder Forum to exchange ideas with stakeholders on BEREC’s work and plans for 2022 and discuss topics relevant to the telecommunications market (REGISTER HERE).
The Director of the United Nations Statistics Division Stefan Schweinfest will kick off the annual BEREC stakeholder Forum with a keynote speech on how 5G can contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In 2015, the UN defined and adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to ensure everyone everywhere is integrated into the global economy and substantially improves their quality of life, health and wealth. The rapidly growing 5G and very high capacity networks can help achieve the SDGs, from an inclusive society to ensuring decent work and economic growth.

5G is one of BEREC's strategic priorities set out in its strategy for 2021-2025. The BEREC Vice-Chair Dan Sjöblom (PTS, Sweden) will present the essential aspects of regulation involved in the 5G ecosystem to the audience. BEREC developed the so-called 5G radar – a project to help National Regulatory Authorities anticipate the issues involved and support the pace of innovation. This project aims to anticipate any changes to regulation that may be required to keep pace with innovation.
To continue on the topic of future opportunities and challenges, DG CONNECT Director Rita Wezenbeek will touch upon the Digital Decade Communication, expected to be adopted in March. It sets out EU targets for 2030, with emphasis on the digital and green transition. The proposed Communication aims at charting the pathway to a common digital decade vision for the EU, Member States, and most importantly, citizens.

Is there sufficient information for end-users to make informed choices and are the end-users able to easily switch their provider of electronic communications services? This will be the main question to that the BEREC Chair Michel Van Bellinghen (BIPT, Belgium) would like to tackle  during the Stakeholder Forum. He will outline BEREC’s upcoming stakeholder engagement to kick off  the BEREC Opinion on the market and technological developments and their impact on the application of end-users rights.

BEREC's future aims are to play an essential role in further improving the consistency and harmonised application of regulatory rules, enhancing its working methodology, and engaging cooperatively and effectively with stakeholders. The outline for the draft BEREC Work Programme 2022 was adopted in January 2021. The incoming Chair Annemarie Sipkes (ACM, The Netherlands) will elaborate more on the work planned for BEREC next year and will underline stakeholders' role in better understanding their perspectives and concerns regarding the common key challenges.

Sustainability is an essential horizontal principle that remains high on the radar of BEREC’s work overall. The Co-chair of the BEREC Sustainability Working Group Anaïs Aubert will present the current work and challenges of European regulators to the stakeholders.

Traditionally, the Director of Cullen International Philippe Defraigne will moderate the BEREC Stakeholder Forum. He will also facilitate the stakeholders' engagement with the BEREC Chairs and other speakers by taking on board both sent-in and live questions.

The 9th BEREC Stakeholder Forum will be held online and livestreamed with the opportunity to ask questions live. BEREC invites stakeholders to register their interest in the event and send questions to the speakers before the event to [email protected] by 30 March 2021.