CEOs Press EU to Do More for Competitiveness

CEOs from the largest European operators and vendors expressed concern that the European Commission has not done enough to put the continent on an equal footing with the US and Asia. In an open letter to EC President Ursula von der Leyen, executives called on the EC to help restore Europe’s competitiveness on the global stage.

Chiefs from Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, TIM, Vodafone, Nokia, BT, Liberty, the GSMA, and Ericsson noted it had been a year since the EC took on the task of making Europe more competitive and emphasized the need for the highest standard of digital infrastructure to aid this. “We write together to express our serious concern that the bold reforms urgently needed to secure Europe’s digital future are being placed at risk by slow and timid actions from your Commission,” the CEOs wrote.

The EC’s Digital Networks Act (DNA) is a proposed set of reforms to the European Union’s telecommunications rules that should help in modernizing infrastructure and creating a more integrated single market, which the executives branded a crucial opportunity. “Europe’s sovereignty, security and ability to protect its values rests on the Commission delivering against its promise of serious reform.”

European operators have raised concerns that the DNA would ignore their requests to allow mergers to occur at a more rapid pace. “The Commission must act boldly to recognize the link between scale and investment, and a much-simplified regulatory framework that increases investment capacities for all industrial sectors in the context of communication and computing,” the executives stated.