Testing EU experimentalist governance in the Telecoms sector

The building of a Digital Single Market for telecommunications is one of the main priorities of the current European Commission. Yet, the achievement of an actual single market for telecoms is still far from becoming a reality. The designed (multi-level) regulatory model for telecommunications places sector-specific National Regulatory Authorities at the core in the system for the implementation of the EU regulatory framework for telecoms.

Moreover, the enforcement of the framework corresponds to the Member States under the national procedural autonomy. However, in order to preserve the legal integrity of the EU rules, the consistent application of the EU telecoms framework and the achievement of its policy objectives builds on a sector-specific supervisory mechanisms that grants the European Commission greater powers to monitor the different regulatory approaches of national regulators: Articles 7 and 7a of the Framework Directive on telecoms regulation.

These articles put in place a consultation and monitoring system of a post-legislative nature that aims at consolidating the internal market for telecoms based on a combination of hard and soft law techniques, but is this system up to the task?

This brief post examines a pending case (Case C‑28/15, Koninklijke KPN NV and Others v Autoriteit Consument en Markt) that highlights the deficiencies of the market-consolidating mechanism put in place.