‘Nationalism’ will cost dear, warns BT boss

By Tim King

Date: 23/03/06

The EU's professed ambitions to create a single market in services will, if the Union's telecoms legislation is any guide, be under-mined by nationalism, according to an executive director of BT, the London-based telecoms group.

Andy Green, who is head of BT Global Services, told European Voice: "In telecoms, we had a harmonisation directive. The effect has been the exact opposite of harmonisation."

The policies pursued by the Irish national regulator and the German national regulator in telecoms were poles apart, he said.

That was, he said, the reality of the European environment in which his company had to operate. BT Global Services provides communications for businesses operating on more than one site.

In Germany 18 months ago, Deutsche Telekom announced that it was withdrawing service from some of his customers and BT had to go to court to ensure that service continued.

Such a situation made a nonsense of the idea of a harmonised market, he argued.

Divisions over the services directive would continue, he predicted, in the absence of a political consensus on what economic results were wanted.

"At the very core of the EU was the idea of a common market. We are lacking a consensus on that - and that is important," he said.

Reflecting on the divisions over the services directive, he said EU policymakers should not kid themselves that services were not going to be delivered across borders.

"We are going to see quite dramatic shifts in the provision of services.

"Services are going to be delivered globally whether you like it or not," said Green, whose company provides the technology for businesses to operate around the world.

The way business was being done was being transformed, he said, by the digital network-ed economy.

Green said that he regarded the services directive as "completely on message". It was, he said, the right intention.

"Services are what Europe is going to be about," he said, adding that Europe should concentrate on developing a knowledge economy and its services sector.

It was important, he believed, to create a favourable environment for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow.

If the barriers to cross-border provision of services persisted, he did not believe SMEs would have the time or energy to overcome them.

But he did not believe that EU legislation was any guarantee of success. What mattered would be whether countries were persuaded of the case for action.

There was, he said, a case for a pioneer group of countries acting together, if necessary leaving others behind.

"It doesn't matter much if two countries decide not to do that," he said, adding that he did not expect France and Germany to be the motors of Europe's economic growth in the com-ing years.

He believed that governments should concentrate on outcomes: such as setting targets for the creation of SMEs.

It would be useful to be able to point to countries that were examples of "what a model European state would be doing to maximise its own economic interest".

Comments by Andy Green, who is head of BT Global Services, who was warning that the EU's professed ambitions to create a single market in services would, if the Union's telecoms legislation was any guide, be undermined by nationalism.