THE REVISED EUROPEAN REGULATORY FRAMEWORK FOR TELECOMMUNICATIONS - A STEP FORWARD TOWARDS A SINGLE MARKET?

Following a process that took four years to complete, the legislative acts that reform the regulatory framework for electronic communications were published in late 2009. The revision only introduce partial modifications to the 2002 framework whose underlying principle is the confidence placed on the general competition defence rules, i.e., on the identification and analysis of relevant markets. This article provides a critical analysis of this framework, and on a more general level, of the telecommunications policy of the European Commission. Its contribution to the further development of the single market, considering other factors such as the fact that only a minority of Member States had notified before the deadline measures to implement in full new telecoms rules into national law, is particularly addressed.