Wholesale Roaming Markets

These Briefings are prepared by the Ex-Ante Impact Assessment Unit of the European Parliament for the relavent EP Committee(s) examining the European Commission propsoal. The Briefing analyses whether the principal criteria laid down in the Commission’s own Better Regulation Guidelines, as well as additional factors identified by the Parliament in its Impact Assessment Handbook, appear to be met by the IA. It does not attempt to deal with the substance of the proposal. It is drafted for informational and background purposes to assist the relevant parliamentary committee(s) and Members of the European Parliament more widely in their work.The Impact Assessment (IA) may well have been prepared in some haste, given that the RLAH regime is supposed to be introduced in less than a year. However, overall, it is of reasonable quality and presents a good overview and comparison of policy measures. One weakness of the analysis is that it does not go beyond the main objective, namely to enable cost recovery for the operators after the abolition of roaming charges. While this is understandable, given that the proposal is an amendment of the existing legislation, the final analysis could usefully have been broadened to include other possible economic, social and environmental impacts. This would have allowed the IA to better match the analysis with the complexity of the problem highlighted in the introduction.

• Primary Source

EP: EPRS: Briefing: Implementation Appraisal: Ex-ante Impact Assessment http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/search.html?policyAreas=EXIMAS

ESO: Background information: Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 531/2012 as regards rules for wholesale roaming markets http://www.europeansources.info/record/proposal-for-a-regulation-of-the-european-parliament-and-of-the-council-amending-regulation-eu-no-531-2012-as-regards-rules-for-wholesale-roaming-markets/

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