On Tuesday 24 October, the ministers for telecommunications and digital affairs of the EU Member States discussed the future of the telecommunications sector. Together with Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, they took stock of the future regulatory frameworks that the EU will have to put in place in this area, starting with the Digital Network Act proposal, on which the Commission is working after consulting with stakeholders (see EUROPE 13269/9).
“Each of the ministers has clearly understood that this is not about solving a one-off problem, but about looking to the future to define together a common vision for the EU27 in terms of technology, financing and regulation”, declared Mr Breton.
During their second day of meetings in León, the ministers undertook to work on a white paper on the subject, which will focus on the protection of networks - in particular submarine cables - and cyberspace, artificial intelligence, edge computing and satellites. It should come into being in the first half of 2024 under the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the EU.
“Then we will have to begin by building the architecture of the legal text”, specified Mr Breton, who hopes to base the approach for digital networks on that used for the Chips Act (see EUROPE 13229/23), which “generated more than €100 billion in investment”.
“We will need to put a figure on the - very substantial - investments to be made, and enable the financial world to regain its appetite for the telecoms sector. This trend needs to be corrected very quickly”, he added.
Work should also focus on identifying networks and infrastructures and analysing existing regulatory problems. “We may have to dust ourselves off a bit to get to grips with all this”, the Internal Market Commissioner also warned.
“The network is the backbone in this international context. We insisted on the need to improve infrastructures so that they are safe and resilient. We must continue to develop connectivity, the broadband network and cooperation between the public and private sectors”, stressed the Spanish Minister for Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño.
The ministers also addressed the issues of artificial intelligence (see EUROPE 13277/19), the Digital Decade (see EUROPE 13259/3) and digital rights. At this informal meeting, the ministers also signed the first declaration on digital rights in the field of neurotechnologies, in which the Member States undertake to promote “human focused and rights oriented approach”.
See the declaration (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/98k (Original version in French by Thomas Mangin)