Q & A with Konstantinos Masselos, President of the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission, and BEREC Chair for 2023 (PART 1)
International Institute of Communications (IIC)
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Q. WHAT GOALS DO YOU HAVE WHILE IN YOUR ROLE AS CHAIR OF BEREC?
A. My main objective as BEREC Chair 2023 is to contribute to BEREC’s continuous efforts for independent, consistent and high quality regulation of digital markets for the benefit of European citizens. Our strategic priorities for 2021-2025 that will be addressed by BEREC’s work in 2023, include promoting full connectivity, supporting sustainable, open and competitive digital markets and the empowerment of end users. The successful implementation of the Work Programme 2023 is a challenge in itself as it is quite ambitious, including 51 projects, 13 of which start this year.
New projects address trends such as ‘wholesale only’ tower and fibre companies, the phasing out of 2G and 3G networks, connectivity from low earth orbit satellites, migration to very high capacity networks and copper switch off, the entry of content application providers in the electronic communications market, ‘cloudification’ and ‘softwarisation’ of telecommunications, and the regulatory challenges of IoT. Participation in the dialogue around the EC’s connectivity package (the Gigabit Infrastructure Act and the Access Recommendations), is also a priority for 2023, achieving the ambitious European connectivity targets for 2030. This includes the ongoing discussion about who should contribute to network investments, which should be held in light of the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles.
The last includes a statement that all market actors benefiting from the digital transformation should assume their social responsibilities and make a fair and proportionate contribution to the costs of public goods, services and infrastructures. It also emphasises the protection of a neutral and open internet. Digital regulation will be also a priority for BEREC in 2023 through its participation in the High-Level Group, supporting the EC in the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and in the dialogue for the forthcoming Data Act. Continuing the work on the definition of BEREC’s strategic orientations and roadmap towards 2030 is also a key objective. Ongoing convergence of information and communication technologies – the ‘I’ and the ‘C’ of ICT – is blurring the border between them. This represents a major challenge for electronic communications regulators and needs to be taken into consideration when discussing the roadmap towards 2030.
Q. SHOULD MORE REGULATORS HAVE EXPERIENCE IN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA?
A. The role of regulator requires multidisciplinary skills, including law, economics, engineering, accounting and financial analytics. Regulatory decisions benefit from having a range of different professional skills and perspectives. Hands-on experience with established regulators can be particularly valuable; however both industrial and academic experience is important. Working in industry generates skills and knowledge that are impossible to learn from textbooks and provides insights that are difficult to get from a non-industry perspective. By understanding how the industry and market work, it is easier to design regulatory frameworks of higher quality and enforce them more efficiently. Industrial experience brings other skills such as efficient teamwork, simplification of processes and efficient handling of challenging situations.
Working in academia requires initiative and the creation of robust and novel ideas. It builds experience in the management of resources such as funding and grant money, research personnel and publications. Academic networking is also important since we need to know who’s who in our increasingly esoteric fields. In general, I strongly believe that academic experience should be valued as the equal of ‘work’ experience.?
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Q. THE EETT (HELLENIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND POST COMMISSION) IS BOTH THE REGULATORY AND COMPETITION AUTHORITY FOR THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS SECTOR – HOW MUCH DOES YOUR ROLE OVERLAP WITH THE HELLENIC COMPETITION COMMISSION, FOR EXAMPLE IN CONSIDERING REGULATION OF LARGE PLATFORMS?
A. Indeed, EETT is both the regulator and the competition commission for electronic communications and postal markets with exclusive competence in these fields. Although our model is not common to other EU and OECD countries, I strongly believe that there is no one-size-fits-all model in the institutional arrangements for competition enforcement. A regulator developing competition skills brings significant advantages, as it allows a) building on the sector-specific acquired expertise, b) enforcement of an optimal mix of competition law and regulatory tools, and c) more efficient consideration of competition principles when issuing regulatory frameworks. The EU regulatory framework for the electronic communications sector, as recently codified with the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), already includes many competition law principles, which means that a number of critical decisions need to be made by the regulator with a view to establishing a competitive landscape.?
The assignment of exclusive competition law enforcement powers to the EETT (both for national and EU competition legislation) for the electronic communications and postal markets means that there is no overlap with the role of the Hellenic Competition Commission in these two markets. In the case of digital platforms, the DMA enforcement mandate is mainly with the European Commission. Most recently the EETT was acknowledged as the sectoral competition authority for the DMA.
With regards to the DSA, no significant role is foreseen at the national level for the competition commissions, but in several EU Member States, electronic communications regulators are considered most suitable for the role of national coordinator. The path of cooperation is and has always been an essential and conscious choice for the EETT, whether with independent authorities and sector specific regulators, on a national basis, or with the public authorities of other EU Member States and countries around the world.
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