Page 135 - SAMENA Trends - July-August 2022

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

EU Institutions Agree on Governance Framework for the Digital Transition

The EU Council, Parliament and EU countries will have to develop strategic What the EU countries did not want are
Commission reached a political deal roadmaps on how they plan to achieve the policy recommendations of the same tone
on the Path to the Digital Decade. The targets with measures such as regulatory as the European Semester. As a result, the
European Commission proposed the policy measures and targeted investments. The entire article on the recommendations has
framework last September as a tool to national roadmaps will be reviewed in 2026. been removed from the final agreement.
support the national governments in their The progress will be monitored based on the Thus, for countries that are not respecting
efforts to reach the Digital Decade targets, Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), a their national roadmaps, the Commission
a set of objectives for the digital transition composite indicator that assesses the level will be able to initiate a dialogue that will
related to skills, infrastructure, technology of digital preparedness for each EU country. lead to ‘mutually agreed conclusions’.
uptake and e-governance to be reached by The EU executive will assess such progress Moreover, the frequency of the cooperation
2030. “This program will contribute to a in their yearly report on the State of the between the member states and the EU
modern, competitive, digitized, prosperous Digital Decade based on country-specific executive has been extended from once
and educated society and to well-targeted Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be per year to every two years. In exchange,
digital transformation,” said Ivan Bartoš, defined via implementing acts. According MEPs managed to considerably water
the Czech deputy prime minister for to an addition in the preamble of the text, down the provisions that referred to the
digitalization. The negotiation marks the the assessment in these annual reports ‘fair share’, an initiative to make the most
first political agreement in the digital policy will also have to take into consideration data-intensive online platforms contribute
area for the Czech Presidency, which took the regional dimension, in other words, if a to the cost of digital infrastructure. A
over the helm of the EU two weeks ago country’s performance is affected by lagging reference to the ‘fair share’ was added in
and treated the file with high priority. The regions. At the same time, EU lawmakers the EU Council’s mandate but was rejected
general objectives of the program have obtained that the member states will have in the European Parliament. In the final text,
been modified compared to the original to provide more information at the regional lawmakers obtained the removal of any
proposal with an enhanced focus on level. The extent to which the Commission reference to a ‘fair’ contribution to public
fundamental rights, transparency, security will be able to issue recommendations to goods, services and infrastructure, and
and the promotion of digital skills. Together the member states that are not on track turned it into non-discriminatory access
with the member states, the European with the KPIs was a critical point during for users. Another concession for the
Commission will draft trajectories on how the negotiations – even a redline for 18 member states is the downsize of any
to reach the digital benchmarks. In turn, the member states, according to an EU official. reference to radio spectrum allocation,
which the governments consider a scarce
resource managed at the national level.
The reference to the Declaration on Digital
Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade
was also moved to the text’s preamble, as
the EU Council was reluctant to include a
proposal that has not been adopted yet.
The policy program introduces the legal
procedure to set up European Digital
Infrastructure Consortia, pooling private
and public funding for multi-country
projects relevant to the digital transition
like high-performance computing,
data infrastructure, 5G networks, and
cybersecurity centers.

Minister: Cellcos Must Create Mutual Assistance Plan to Cope with Network

Outages

Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science net networks after a massive outage last disruption apparently caused by a mainte-
& Industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne, Friday left millions of Rogers’ users offline nance update to Rogers’ core network, the
has called on Rogers Communications and and affected some critical services, CBC Minister convened a meeting of CEOs of
rival telecoms operators to forge a plan to News reports. After many customers were Rogers, Bell and Telus on Monday to dis-
boost the resiliency of cellular and inter- denied service for around 15 hours due to cuss ways to mitigate the effects of simi-

135 JULY-AUGUST 2022