The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC; , EEKRE; german: Gremium Europäischer Regulierungsstellen für elektronische Kommunikation, GEREK), based in Riga (Latvia), is the regulating agency of the telecommunication market in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

. It was created by the

Telecoms Package The Telecoms Package was the review of the European Union Telecommunications Framework from 2007 – 2009. The objective of the review was to update the EU Telecoms Framework of 2002 and to create a common set of regulations for the telecoms indus ...

which was passed in September 2009. BEREC includes national regulatory authorities (NRAs) on its board and an administrative staff including Community officials. The budget will be €5.5 million. BEREC will issue opinions on market definitions and remedies proposed by NRAs. The Members of BEREC met for the first time in January 2010 in Brussels to elect a chairman and vice chairmen, who will serve a 12-month term and will likely focus initially on topics such as

Next Generation Access Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...

Net Neutrality Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...

Universal Service Universal service is an economic, legal and business term used mostly in regulated industries, referring to the practice of providing a baseline level of services to every resident of a country. An example of this concept is found in the US Telec ...

Obligations and the functional separation of local network access and

backhaul network access In a hierarchical telecommunications network, the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone network, and the small subnetworks at the ''edge'' of the network. The most common network t ...

History

The European Telecom Market Authority (more properly known as the European Electronic Communications Market(s) Authority or EECMA) was proposed by

Viviane Reding Viviane Adélaïde Reding (born 27 April 1951) is a Luxembourgish politician and a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Luxembourg. She is a member of the Christian Social People's Party, part of the European People's Party. She p ...

as agency for the

in 2007. Although initially presented as having power to override national telecommunications regulators, it would in fact essentially act merely as a consultative body for the European Commission. It is proposed that the Authority be able to issue opinions and recommendations, to the Commission, concerning spectrum issues, market analyses that have not been completed on time by national regulators, and on the possible imposition of remedies such as price control, accounting separation, or indeed functional separation. The Commission would have to take the utmost account of these opinions and recommendations, but would not be bound by them. It is also proposed that the Authority be able to issue decisions, which would be binding, in the area of the ETNS (which concerns the pan-EU fixed telephone prefix +3883). The Commission would have no say in this. The Authority would consist of 27 members representing each of the 27 national regulators and voting by simple majority. It has been reported that a similar system of cooperation exists between the Commission and the

European Medicines Agency The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) in charge of the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products. Prior to 2004, it was known as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products or Eur ...

although in the context of authorisations to market products, rather than regulation of market conditions. Eventually in 2009 it was decided to transform the established in 2002 European Regulators Group (with office based in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

) into the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications and for its office seat was chosen

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the ...

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

in May 2010.

References

External links

*
Regulation (EC) No 1211/2009

Commission decision: 2002/627/EC of 29 July 2002

Procedure file
reflects the current state of the procedure towards the adoption of the BEREC. {{Authority control Agencies of the European Union 2009 in the European Union Telecommunications regulatory authorities Telecommunications in Europe Organisations based in Riga Government agencies established in 2009 2010 establishments in Latvia Regulation in the European Union

History

See also

References

External links