EUR 10 EUR OURWORLD.CO 009 ISSUE 2019 JANUARY Leading minds reflect on the state of our societies, and examine the challenges that lie ahead. the examine of our societies, and on the state minds reflect Leading our world. vision for a new ideas that will help form generating to An edition dedicated POLARISATION & POPULISM, INNOVATION & DISRUPTION, DISRUPTION, & INNOVATION POPULISM, & POLARISATION DREAMS,EUROPEAN AI, POLITICS TRUMP FUTURE-PROOFING Past, present, future present, Past, OUR WORLD OUR
JANUARY 2019 | Issue 009 OUR WORLD A New Europe publication IX >
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respective owners. © 2018 AT&T Intellectual Property. AT&T and Globe logo are registered trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks are the property of their INDEX 88 OUR WORLD Editorial 5 Living Other People’s Dreams, and Knowing When to Start a Revolution By Alexandros Koronakis 12
88 LEADERSHIP: VISIONS FOR OUR WORLD
Listen More and Better to Put International Values Shape Ethical Choices Co-Operation Back on Track By David Huntley 28 By José Ángel Gurría 16 Humanity’s Finest Work of art Time to Focus on European Public Goods By Giovanni Buttarelli 30 By Martin Selmayr 18 The EU is Not Enough Overcoming The Trust Deficit By Adina Vălean 32 By Dimitris Avramopoulos 20 Europe: From Project to Project(ing) a Political Polarization: Is there an Antidote? Common Future By Erica Lutes 22 By Julia Harrison 34
Transatlantic Relations: Difficult Decisions Globalization at a Crossroads Ahead By Gordon Brown 36 By Gordon D. Sondland 24
88 THE EUROPEAN UNION: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE The World Needs Europe By Louka T. Katseli 52 By Jean-Claude Juncker 40 Europe as a People’s Project? Spizenkandidat Process: By Alberto Alemanno 54 A Step Forward Towards European Democracy Carte Blanche or Tabula Rasa? By Antonio López-Istúriz White 44 By Emma Brown 56
A Common European Defence Policy as A New Direction for EU Telecoms Policy? Response to Today’s Challenges By Peter Alexiadis and Tony Shortall 58 By David McAllister 46 A New Europe The Future of Agriculture in the EU By Francisco Jaime Quesado 60 By Czesław Siekierski 48 The European New Year EU Asylum Policy: By Javier Zarzalejos 61 The Ball is in the Council’s Court By Cecilia Wikström 50 Shaping Europe’s Present and Future An Interview with Federica Mogherini 62 Another Europe is Feasible 6 2019 | OUR WORLD THE EUROPEAN UNION
A New Direction for EU Telecoms Policy?
By Peter Alexiadis and Tony Shortall
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n 4 December 2018, the necessary to drive the DSM strategy. The Code’s new policy balance Council approved a new This initiative seen in the broader is pursued in a number of ways. At O legislative framework for the context of the health of the European one level, the Code seeks to lower telecommunications sector in the EU, economy, whose dependence on entry barriers and enable competitive referred to as the European Electronic the deployment of future upgraded investments by lowering the costs Communications Code (“the Code”). It is networks by both fixed and mobile of deployment for those networks due to come into full effect across the operators was set out in rather stark through the enhanced sharing of civil EU Member States by late December terms in the Commission’s Gigabit infrastructures. The Code also seeks 2020, codifying in one single document Society Communication. to create incentives to investment by all the disparate elements of law which To this end, a principal objective ensuring lighter access conditions and make up the EU Regulatory Framework of the Code is to foster investments in higher returns, wherever possible. To for electronic communications. these new Very High Capacity Networks some extent, the Code also seeks to The Code re-aligns the electronic (VHCNs). VHCN is essentially about create more transparency and legal communications regulatory framework investments in fibre and nothing else. In certainty for investors by setting out in a manner which strikes what the case of fixed networks, it is defined the rules in greater detail, in advance appears to be a very different policy as “Fibre to the Home” or “Fibre to the of any statutory interpretation effected balance between the importance of Building” (or its “equivalent” but, as by National Regulatory Authorities maintaining competition through defined, it is difficult to see how it can (“NRAs”). This might arguably create inter-platform competition, on the one have a practical equivalent). In the case unforeseen difficulties in certain hand, and the need for the massive of mobile networks, it means “Fibre to instances, especially because it can investments that are deemed to be the Base Station”. be almost impossible to legislate
58 2019 | OUR WORLD PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE for every contingency. Irrespective of these measures, however, by making the promotion of investment in VHCN a primary objective for EU regulators, NRAs are bound to focus all of their decision-making through this prism to determine what the impact of any of their regulatory decisions will be on the deployment …the impact of of VHCN. In terms of specific regulatory obligations the separation of laid down in the Code to drive VHCN networks raises very investments, the momentum to achieve the benefits of this infrastructure-based legitimate concerns approach to competition is now laid squarely about investment at the feet of separation remedies. These range from the very specific support given co-ordination and to “Wholesale-only” operators (which have so-called investment no retail operations and hence, in theory, have no incentive to discriminate against “hold-up” problems retail competitors) to co-investments made in VHCN where a separate governance structure in the future. is likely to emerge. While the evidence to date suggests that Wholesale-only operators and their investments are accelerating rapidly, the evidence of integrated operators making a competitive response to such investments Peter Alexiadis will deliver the investments necessary for is more elusive. The competition implications Europe to achieve its broadband aspirations and Tony of such an approach (and, indeed, the long has been rebutted in practice. Regulatory policy term investment benefits) are also less than Shortall in the future will henceforth confer primacy to obvious. A Wholesale-only business model, Peter Alexiadis is achieving the longer term goal of achieving in particular, while possibly removing the the founding partner VHCN deployment above the short term goal incentives for the operator to discriminate, also of the Brussels office of greater broadband retail price competition. signals very strongly the limits to infrastructure of Gibson, Dunn & Indeed, the recent grant of unconditional competition, as do all separation remedies. Crutcher and he also clearance to a 4-to-3 mobile merger in The In parallel, the impact of the separation of serves as Partner-In- Netherlands in parallel with the adoption of the Charge of the office. networks raises very legitimate concerns EECC suggests – even if only indirectly - that He is also Visiting about investment co-ordination and so-called even EU competition law might in parallel be Professor at King’s investment “hold-up” problems in the future. re-calibrating its notion of consumer welfare College in London. The counterweight to the apparent dilution to attribute greater weight to the importance of regulatory intervention in the sector is Tony Shortall is of network upgrades above short-term retail arguably found in the wide-ranging role to Director of Telage, a price rises. be played by BEREC, the European Union’s consultancy in the field If all of this is correct, the EU will be consulting group for NRAs. A surprisingly large of telecommunications witnessing a massive shift in regulatory role is to be played by BEREC in the articulation economics and policy emphasis. Whether or not, however, of policy in the electronic communications regulation. He has that official policy line at Commission level sector as the Code is implemented into previously served as materialises in practice across all the Member national laws. It is not unreasonable to assume an economist at the States will depend in large measure on the European Commission that many existing regulatory principles may attitude of NRAs, cooperating with BEREC, in and as the senior therefore continue to find their way into the the implementation of regulatory policy in economist at the Irish post-2020 regulatory regime, especially given concrete individual situations of enforcement. Competition Authority. the possible consultation role that BEREC One should not be surprised if, at the ground might play in the elaboration of rules regarding level of policy enforcement, change in policy platform providers. is not as far-reaching as many in the Brussels Thus, the policy drift of the Code suggests community of policy formulation might be that the presumption that competition alone anticipating.
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