EU-Turkey accession negotiations: impact assessment of Chapter 10 on information society and media

In the past few years, Turkey has launched very important and ambitious reforms in the information society and media sector. Even more substantial changes are expected in 2009, after the new e-communications law has been approved at the end of 2008. Apart from the 49 expected pieces of secondary legislation foreseen to implement the new Law No 5809, Turkey has also planned important steps in the domain of spectrum policy, with licenses for WiMAX soon to be awarded. This report analyses the current state of advancement of Turkey’s regulatory reform in this sector, and formulates suggestions for reform on the basis of a complex and articulated impact assessment exercise. Our final conclusion is that Turkey may profit significantly from a set of targeted reforms, aimed at solving existing problems that have been highlighted, i.a., by the European Commission and also by the recent ECTA Scorecard 2008. These include, very briefly: • The streamlining of primary legislation, • A more proactive approach towards the liberalization of the fixed-line and broadband sectors, • Efforts to bring the regulatory framework in line with the EU framework, • A clear and reliable plan to drastically reduce taxation in the area of mobile and internet services and • Striving for ‘better regulation’. A new special CEPS report by Andrea Renda, Selen Guerin and Emrah Arbak analyses the current state of advancement of Turkey’s regulatory reform in the information society and media sector sector, and formulates suggestions for reform on the basis of a complex and articulated impact assessment exercise.