There can be no economic recovery without the digital economy and there can be no digital economy without strong competition policy. This is the message issued, on 7 July, by Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia at the Jevons Institute, University College London. The commissioner was striving to demonstrate that the EU’s competition policy is a prerequisite for the development of the digital landscape. He provided an overall view of the main challenges of this rapidly evolving sector of the economy, a focal point of the revival in growth, at the heart of the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy. According to him, “competition policy must be a key part of this strategy as a way to ensure market access and opportunities to all efficient players capable of delivering new value”. It must be maintained in the digital economy with the same intensity that it is imposed in the brick and mortar world, because “it is by guaranteeing a competitive environment that we can ensure the development of value, quality and innovation. This is precisely how new economic activity will flourish”.

NEW REGULATION

He also announced the preparation of a recommendation for next generation access networks that aims at encouraging the development of very fast broadband across Europe. The objective is to create incentives for expensive investment and guarantee “a level playing field in this sector”. The proposed new regulatory framework will continue to mandate access to the network when a dominant player operates in a market, in order to prevent abuse of position. It will also strive to promote co-investment in order to encourage the rapid development of this market while maintaining strong regulatory surveillance. State aid is likely to be a contributing factor towards achieving the objectives of the regulation. The commissioner announced that guidelines would be published in 2012 in order to clarify the rules for funding broadband and next generation access networks.

ONLINE CONTENT

Moving on to content, Almunia issued a warning to collecting societies, which are preventing the development of an internal market for content via fragmentation initiatives. They must review their methods. “The market for online content in Europe is a shameful anachronism, and the distribution of content online across the entire European Union is expensive and difficult. This market fragmentation deprives us of scale and the lack of scale deprives us of business”, he declared. To recall, in June 2008, the Commission had condemned 24 collecting societies, which were limiting their capacity to offer their services to authors and commercial users outside their national territory. Almunia indicated that the Commission would soon make proposals with a view to improving the transparency and governance of these societies.