RSPG EECC meeting - June 2019

The RSPG working group (WG) on the European Electronic Communications Code (RSPG EECC), tasked with adjusting the RSPG to the new challenges and powers arising from the EECC, met last 13 June in Brussels.

The group is co-chaired by France (Agence Nationale des Fréquences (ANFR)), Hungary (National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH)) and Germany (Ministry of Transportation and Digital Infrastructure), though only the co-chairs from Hungary and Germany attended this meeting. It was established early in the year, specifically to:

• identify new tasks stemming from the new European regulatory framework (the Code) that the RSPG should carry out;
• propose the actions needed to achieve them (e.g. changes to the rules of procedure (RoP) and to the decision establishing the RSPG, identification of new items to include in the working group’s programme and implementation of the peer review (PR) envisaged in the Code).

This meeting was attended by representatives from the European Commission and delegates from 13 member-states¹, with ANACOM representing Portugal.

Key results of the meeting:

• preparation of the RSPG report on making operational the PR procedure – inter-peer analysis, a task the new European regulatory framework assigns to the RSPG;
• regarding the implementation of article 35(2) of the Code, relative consensus was achieved on: (1) triggers for an exceptional PR (number of member-states in favour and way of counting that number and how it will differ from the process currently envisaged in the RoP, in so far as abstention in this matter should not be considered an implicit yes); (ii) the possibility that the member-state concerned can, during the first phase of this process, opt for a voluntary PR; and (iii) the choice of chair for that exercise, noting that the exceptional PR is done on the initiative of the RSPG in a situation in which the member-state concerned did not request the review exercise carried out by the peers.

Note that the manner of implementing the exceptional PR will determine whether it is easier or harder to unleash the peer review process without the express consent of the member-state concerned.

The next in-person meeting of RSPG EECC is scheduled for this 11 June in Brussels and will be the last before the October plenary meeting. At this meeting:

• the group should present for approval the report on implementation of article 35 PR;
• the Commission should present for approval a proposal to revise the RoP, coordinated with this group's proposals.

Until then, the group will continue working by correspondence, basically to make progress on the report to finish at the next meeting.