Single eCOMMs Market? No Such Thing…

CEPS Policy Brief No. 231

12 Pages Posted: 10 Feb 2011

See all articles by Jacques Pelkmans

Jacques Pelkmans

Centre for European Policy Studies

Andrea Renda

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS); College of Europe

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Date Written: February 1, 2011

Abstract

Notwithstanding the undeniable success of telecoms liberalization in terms of price reduction, new services and technologies as well as consumer satisfaction, EU telecoms policy is at least a half failure. This might seem hard to believe, but this Policy Brief shows that there is no such thing as an EU telecoms (or eComms) single market. We provide ample empirical economic and regulatory evidence of profound and lingering fragmentation as well as a brief assessment of the flaws of the third eComms package of 2009, now in force. Overcoming the fragmentation cannot but yield a considerable welfare improvement for the Union, which is exactly what a single market should be expected to deliver. Doing away with the flaws in the EU system requires a better institutional design. We wonder whether the regulatory (and competition policy) approach is really suitable for the Union and whether the fundamental conflict between the EU constitutional doctrine and the building of the single market (just as much a constitutional duty!) should not be resolved in novel ways.

Keywords: telecoms, telecoms liberalization, new services, technologies, consumer satisfaction, EU, EU telecoms policy, policy, single market, welfare, improvement, fragmentation, regulatory, constitutional

Suggested Citation

Pelkmans, Jacques and Renda, Andrea, Single eCOMMs Market? No Such Thing… (February 1, 2011). CEPS Policy Brief No. 231, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1756820

Jacques Pelkmans (Contact Author)

Centre for European Policy Studies ( email )

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Andrea Renda

Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) ( email )

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Brussels, 1000
Belgium

HOME PAGE: http://www.ceps.be

College of Europe ( email )

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