BREKO statement regarding EU Council's General Approach on the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA)
05.12.2023
Brussels/Bonn, 05 December 2023 Today, the Council of the European Union endorsed a negotiating mandate (‘general approach’) for the upcoming “trilogue” negotiations with the European Parliament and the European Commission regarding the proposed Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA). The German Broadband Association BREKO welcomes the overall goal of the GIA to accelerate fiber deployment and reduce its cost. While some measures proposed by the Council will bring the necessary flexibility to address specificities at the member state level, other changes proposed by the Council seem less conducive to accelerate the rollout of fiber networks.
Council introduces necessary flexibility to take due account of specific situations in individual member states
BREKO very much welcomes the flexibility introduced by the ‘general approach’ of the Council, which will allow individual member states to address their specific concerns regarding investments into duct infrastructure, and strategic overbuild scenarios. In particular, the ‘general approach’ as adopted by the Council today provides the possibility for first moving telecommunications operators who heavily invest into civil engineering, building passive infrastructures for fiber networks, to protect their investments. To this end, first movers have the right to reject requests from second mover telecommunications operators to deploy their own fiber in the newly built passive infrastructure, as long as they offer a suitable active wholesale bitstream access product on a non-discriminatory basis (although subject to a number of conditions). Previous versions of the GIA proposed by the Commission and endorsed by the Parliament did not include this possibility.
“Unlike most other EU member states, Germany does not have a blanket coverage of empty ducts. Our member companies have over the past years invested heavily into fiber infrastructure and have thus deployed 65% of the fiber networks existing in Germany today. As it is the case today, future investments must be protected against second movers’ aggressive overbuild strategies, which aim at taking an almost free ride on the investments of our members”, says Dr. Stephan Albers, Managing Director at BREKO.
Without the solution proposed by the Council’s ‘general approach’ today, second movers could request access to newly built infrastructures at minimal cost to deploy their own fiber networks, thus undermining investment and business cases of first movers and stalling investment decisions. Conversely, at the wholesale level, heavy investments in civil engineering can only be recouped by products at a higher level of the value chain, i.e. by an active bitstream access product which allows competitors to directly access end users.
Dr. Stephan Albers: “Our members are delighted to offer suitable wholesale open access products at fair and reasonable conditions and welcome the competition for end customers at the retail level. The solution proposed today by the Council in Article 3 of its version of the GIA is a major step into the right direction to spur further investments into fiber network infrastructures, although a number of improvements will still be necessary in the upcoming legislative process.”
Measures less conducive to spurring the deployment of fiber networks
The Council’s general approach to the GIA includes a number of provisions which are not particularly conducive to the deployment of fiber networks. By way of example, it does no longer include “tacit approval” provisions introduced by the Commission and endorsed by the Parliament, which stipulated that permits are deemed approved unless explicitly granted or refused within certain time limits. Although BREKO understands that under the laws of some EU member states a “tacit approval” procedure would raise concerns, BREKO is convinced that this measure would have direct, measurable, positive effects on the speed of deployment of fiber networks in EU member states which have not yet adopted such procedures. Therefore, BREKO supports current legislative developments in Germany which aim at extending the scope of application of such mechanisms on a rather short notice.
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About BREKO
As the leading fiber association with 480 member companies, Bundesverband Breitbandkommunikation e.V. (German Broadband Association, BREKO) successfully promotes competition in the broadband market. Its members are committed to future-proof fibre and currently implement 67 percent of fibre connections to buildings and homes. The more than 240 telecommunications network operators organised in the association supply both urban and rural areas with future-proof fibre connections. In 2022 they invested a total of € 4 billion. More information at brekoverband.de/en.