ECTA developed position papers showing the importance of business services to the wider economy and advocating a business-friendly approach to regulation taking account of the differences between business and consumer needs. The three papers provided respectively deals with the need for harmonisation in the business services sector, Ethernet Access and B2B regulation. 
Click here for ECTA's Harmonisation Paper
Click here for B2B Regulation Paper

This submission is in response to the Commission consultation of 3 April 2006 on its Proposal for a Regulation (EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council on mobile roaming services in the Single Market

This ECTA paper reflects the views of members which are non-incumbent providers of telecoms networks, and as such does not incorporate, where such positions would conflict with these views, positions of incumbent operators within the sector or those of providers of non-telecoms services. 

ECTA welcomes and supports the principles in the Discussion Paper. ECTA is an association of pro-competitive telecoms operators with first-hand knowledge of the difficulties of facing exclusionary abuses by incumbent telecoms operators. With this background, the association, representing a majority of its members, would like to bring to the attention of DG COMP that the principles enunciated in the Discussion Paper could have an impact in the electronic communications industry.. 
Click here to access ECTA's response (PDF 363 KB) 

This ECTA paper is in response to: Consultation on the identification of "new markets" in telecommunications and on their regulatory treatment (as published in the Official Gazette of the Federal Network Agency 4/2006, 22 February 2006)
Click here to access ECTA's response (PDF 174 KB)

ECTA welcomes the opportunity to offer comments to DG Competition's Discussion Paper on the application of Article 82 of the Treaty to exclusionary abuses. 

ECTA supports the initiative and the Commission Discussion Paper. The comments in this reply are provided in order to highlight specific concerns, where ECTA considers that on some issues the Discussion Paper could be more specific and that it would be helpful if the Guidelines were more comprehensive, to provide needed guidance in an uncertain area of law. 
Click here to download a copy of the paper

ECTA welcomes the opportunity to input to the European Commission's review of the EU Regulatory Framework for Electronic Communications and Recommendation on Relevant Markets Susceptible to Ex-Ante Regulation. We consider that both the Framework and the Recommendation have played a vital role in driving competition and growth in Europe's telecom sector, and this is vital to underpin the entire i2010 initiative and to ensure that the next generation of users and consumers continue to benefit from competition as the market evolves. 

ECTA welcomes the opportunity to comment on proposed revisions to the ERG Remedies paper, which remains an important tool in promoting consistent application of the Framework. We offer detailed comments in the submission below, but would like to highlight the following points as being particularly critical to ensuring that the revised paper promotes harmonised and effective pro-competitive regulation and provides sufficient certainty and comfort for all telecoms investors across the EU. 
Click here to download a copy of the paper
Click here to download a copy of ECTA's presentation to the public hearing

As major industry stakeholders in the provision of electronic communication services to EU citizens, we hereby outline our main concerns on the issue of data retention.  
Click here to download the position paper 

ECTA's principal concern in this response is that the proposals seem to be at odds with the Commission's overall goal of reinvigorating the Lisbon agenda and focusing on jobs and growth. The issue papers hold out the prospect of considerable extra regulation in the online area, without a demonstration of the "market failures" to justify regulation. The Barroso Commission has shown admirable legislative restraint in many other sectors, and it is far from clear why additional regulation is needed here, and whether imposing regulation on such a fast moving, but still in many ways nascent, set of services is appropriate.   
Click here to download the position paper 

2005 Regulatory Scorecard - updated April 2006
Click here (Zip 1.07 MB)

The European investment document - April 2006
Click here (Word 253 KB)
   
The Response to Indepen's critique of the Regulatory Scorecard - July 2006
Click here (Word 45.5 KB)