Europe’s stark choice: open markets or stagnation

Member States taken to task for depriving their markets of further investment by protecting monopolies; Call for competition to remain at the heart of the 2006 Telecoms review

Brussels (2 Dec. 2005) A new Jones Day and SPC Network study finds that investment in the EU telecoms sector could be put at risk if governments and regulators allow historic telecoms monopolies to re-establish their grip on the market. The Regulatory Scorecard, commissioned by ECTA, concludes that across 16 EU countries, investment in telecoms has suffered where regulation has failed to tackle dominant companies, whilst countries that have opened their markets to competition by imposing effective regulation have stormed ahead.