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Market Access, Regulatory & Frequency Working Group

Mandate

  • To monitor and address regulatory and trade issues, including spectrum policy, licensing and use fees, bilateral and multilateral trade matters, and market access issues; and
  • To respond to European Union, regional or national regulatory authority consultations and reviews on the issues above as appropriate, working where appropriate with relevant trade associations and interested parties; and
  • To establish and maintain direct dialogue and working relationships with national regulatory authorities and appropriate EU institutions, proactively addressing the issues above.

Topics

Trade & Market Access Matters

Many countries in different regions of the world impose restrictive, regulatory procedures and unfavourable treatment on 'foreign' satellite operators including burdensome licensing conditions, disparate fiscal treatment, requirements of national presence and so forth. These prevent the presence and development of a unique global infrastructure. This of course directly affects the ultimate choice of services that distributors can offer to end-users, as well negatively impacting service costs. Hence ESOA urges governments and their national regulatory authorities (NRAs) to adopt clear 'open skies' principles to reduce regulatory and market access barriers for satellite services.

ESOA is also a member of the European Services Forum, a group set up after the EC called upon the services industry to organize itself to provide one interlocutor for the different service sectors. ESOA often joins ESF on its missions to Geneva to meet ambassadors of WTO members to follow the progress of trade negotiations and to emphasize the benefits to industry and citizens of opening markets to satellite services. ESOA also joins ESF delegations meeting with Commissioner Mandelson and members of the EC's 133 ad hoc Committee on Services which gathers the services' negotiators of the 27 EU Member States.

For more information on ESF, see www.esf.be.

Rights to access & use radio spectrum

All over the world the wireless communications industry that relies on the use of radio frequencies is facing increasing political pressure. In the case of a global infrastructure such as satellite, ITU principles and co-ordination mechanisms between countries are still essential to enable cross-border operations amongst satellite operators and also between satellite and other wireless sectors. ESOA therefore opposes isolated national initiatives seeking to introduce market mechanisms and liberalisation policies in order to allocate the rights to use spectrum, including within Europe. These are often incompatible with international policies and risk to eventually exclude satellite from current or future markets.

European Regulatory Framework on Electronic Communications

Although the EC's Framework adopted in 2002 has significantly contributed to improving market conditions for the provision of electronic communications networks and services within the European Union, more still needs to be done to guarantee streamlined licensing conditions, free use of radio terminal equipment and the application of rules that guarantee 'technology neutrality'. ESOA is convinced that the Review initiated in 2005 is another opportunity to improve competition conditions in the EU internal market and the Association actively participates in the consultation process undertaken by the EU Commission.

European Regulation on Audiovisual Services

For more than 15 years, the 'TV Without Frontiers' Directive has contributed to favour the development of a strong European audiovisual industry and the considerable growth of television broadcasting in Europe, which largely relies on satellite. The EU Commission, in deciding to modernise the existing rules with the publication of a proposal for a new directive in December 2005, has launched a decision-making process, the outcome of which is very uncertain. The cornerstone of the directive, the 'country of origin' principle, has been called into question by various EU countries. Thus ESOA seeks to defend the Commission's approach to ensure that potential amendments to the text do not threaten future television services such as digital TV, HDTV or mobile TV from being successful in Europe.

Competition / State-Aid Matters

In the transition from analogue to digital television, various EU member states tend to favour national technologies based on terrestrial systems over others that are more successful and provide a much larger plurality of services, such as satellite. This leads to the adoption of state aid policies that are often incompatible with the competition principles of the EU Treaty in general, and with EU state aid provisions in particular. ESOA has been extremely active, and successful, in convincing the EU Commission to react to, as well as sanction, these national initiatives that fail to respect the 'technology neutrality' principle enshrined in the European regulatory framework on electronic communications.

> Documents of the working group

Contact: Email the Working Group Coordinator