BEREC events 2021

On 1 April 2021, BEREC held 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.
The Director of the United Nations Statistics Division Stefan Schweinfest kicked off the annual BEREC stakeholder Forum with a keynote speech on how 5G can contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
 
5G is one of BEREC's strategic priorities set out in its strategy for 2021-2025. During the event, the BEREC Vice-Chair Dan Sjöblom (PTS, Sweden) elaborated on the essential aspects of regulation involved in the 5G ecosystem. 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.
DG CONNECT Director Rita Wezenbeek touched upon the Digital Decade Communication to continue on the topic of future opportunities and challenges. It sets out EU targets for 2030, with emphasis on the digital and green transition.
 
During the session on the market and technological developments and their impact on the application of end-users rights, the BEREC Chair Michel Van Bellinghen (BIPT, Belgium) presented the new workflow the co-legislators tasked BEREC with. By the end of 2021, it will be the first time BEREC will publish an Opinion on this topic. BEREC will look at the developments regarding the different types of electronic communications services and assess the impact on the application of the rights of end-users enacted in the Code.
The stakeholders' views are essential to BEREC. To kick-off the stakeholders’ engagement on the topic, BEREC invited Monique Goyens, the Director of European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and the policy director at DIGITALEUROPE - Alberto Di Felice to participate in the session. They shared their views on whether there is sufficient information for end-users to make informed choices, and whether end-users are able to switch their electronic communications services provider easily.

Michel Van Bellinghen also referred to a list of questions (also on other end-user rights topics) to be answered by 22 April 2021 at the latest, recently sent by BEREC to some of the Europe wide representative bodies and associations. 

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. In January 2021, BEREC adopted the outline for the draft BEREC Work Programme 2022. During her session, the incoming Chair Annemarie Sipkes (ACM, The Netherlands) elaborated more on the work planned for BEREC next year and underlined stakeholders' role in better understanding their perspectives and concerns regarding the common key challenges. The incoming BEREC Chair encourages all stakeholders and interested parties to provide their views and contributions to the Work Programme 2022 via e-mail to [email protected] before 19 April 2021 (EoB).
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 presented the current work and challenges of European regulators.

Watch the recorded video of the event