BEREC

BEREC was established in 2010 on the basis of an EU Regulation amended in 2018. BEREC contributes to the development of the internal market for electronic communications networks and services by aiming to ensure a consistent application of the European regulatory framework through enhancing the coordination of national regulatory practices.

Organisation

BEREC's structure is based on a two-pillar model that reflects the fact that BEREC as a whole is not an EU Agency but an umbrella organisation comprising two separate bodies. Firstly, the Board of Regulators, the actual advisory body, which is composed of representatives of 36 regulatory authorities, including some with observer status. Secondly, the BEREC Office, which is a body of the Union with legal personality. The BEREC Office is accountable to the Management Board, which is composed of representatives of the EU regulatory authorities and a representative of the Commission.
Konstantinos Masselos of the Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission in Greece is the Chair of the Board of Regulators and the Management Board in 2023. László Ignéczi is the Director in charge of the BEREC Office, which has its seat in Riga.

Working groups

The Bundesnetzagentur not only participates regularly in the plenary meetings and the Contact Network meetings, which serve to prepare for the plenary meetings, but also actively contributes to the activities of all the working groups, which are each responsible for a different topic area. A representative of the Bundesnetzagentur currently co-chairs the Remedies and Market Monitoring working group. The Bundesnetzagentur has experts in all working groups who help produce documents and represent the Bundesnetzagentur's position during the coordination process.
The topics covered by the working groups include the open internet, roaming, end users and the impact of over-the-top services. Many of the working groups' tasks in 2022 result from the regulations in the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), which created a new EU legal framework for the telecommunications sector in 2018. 5G will remain a focus of BEREC's activities in the coming years.

Notification of planned regulatory measures

Representatives of the Bundesnetzagentur also importantly work in the ad hoc expert teams set up by BEREC for "phase II investigations" in notification procedures under Articles 32 and 33 EECC. National regulatory authorities are required to notify the European Commission in advance if they intend to take certain measures, including market definitions, market analyses and regulatory orders on the basis of these procedures. If the Commission has serious doubts as to the compatibility of an intended measure with Union law, it can open what is known as a phase II investigation, during which the regulatory authority may not adopt the measure. Phase II investigations involve BEREC issuing opinions on the national regulatory authorities' planned market regulation decisions; these opinions are drawn up by special ad hoc teams of experts. There is, however, still no right of veto by the Commission for the remedies.

Public BEREC debriefings in Brussels

BEREC holds regular public debriefings in Brussels to present the outcomes of its latest plenary meetings.
Further information about these debriefings is available on the BEREC website and livestream recordings are available on BEREC's YouTube channel.