Hello? EU goes to war with itself over telecoms laws

Commission launches actions against 24 states representing 94% of EU’s population

Unbelievably, UK became fully compliant with EU’s telecom laws weeks before it exited

Yesterday in Brussels, the beleaguered EU Commission started legal proceedings against an astonishing 24 out of the 27 member countries of the European Union.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

Yesterday the Commission sent letters of formal notice to :-

Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Ireland
Italy

Spain
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovenia
Slovakia
Sweden

The EU Commission is taking legal action against countries representing 94% of the EU population

The Commission opened infringement procedures yesterday against 24 member states for failing to enact new EU telecom rules under the ‘European Electronic Communications Code’. This new code is supposed to modernise the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications to ensure, amongst other things, higher standards of communication services including more efficient and accessible emergency communications.

First planned in 2016, ignored by almost all EU countries

It was in September 2016, three months after the UK’s EU Referendum, that the EU Commission decided to “prepare Europe’s digital future”. It proposed the establishment of a European Electronic Communications Code and a Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).

In essence this was all about the phone service in EU countries. The new European Electronic Communications Code duly entered into force on 21 December 2018. The deadline for compliance was two years later on 21 December 2020.

Or at least that was the theory.

The reality – in the “rules-based European Union” – was that everyone ignored the new laws, or paid scant attention to them.

Thanks to OfCom and Theresa May’s Remainer government, the UK did not escape this fiasco

At this point we invite readers to take a wild guess at which other European country, in addition to the three EU member states of Finland, Greece and Hungary, complied with the EU’s new law.

The deadline for transposing the Code into national legislation was 21 December 2020. That was 10 days before the UK formally left the Transition Period and supposedly left the EU in full. Amongst EU countries only Greece, Hungary and Finland were compliant.

However, with only weeks to go before its final exit from the EU on 31 December 2020, the UK implemented the EU’s regulations using a Statutory Instrument. The official document, called ‘The Electronic Communications and Wireless Telegraphy (Amendment) (European Electronic Communications Code and EU Exit) Regulations 2020’ is here.

During the past four years OfCom has worked hard to make the UK compliant with the EU’s new laws, and its actions were not even moderated when the UK left the EU on a legal basis on 31 January 2020, 11 months before the deadline for implementing the EU’s new laws. The policy on this was set by Theresa May's government and never altered.

Reactions to our report have been very quick in coming, here are just two

Today, two former MEPs spoke exclusively to Facts4EU.Org about our report above.

From David Campbell Bannerman, former Conservative MEP and leading Brexiteer:

“The fact that the EU is an undemocratic and remote bureaucracy is clearer than ever now from this, and from the vaccines fiasco.”

From Martin Daubney, former Brexit Party MEP, now Editorial Director at Unlocked UK:

“This is a perfect example of how Theresa May's Remainer government and pro-EU OFCOM sold our souls to Brussels. But even then, Boris could have stopped this. Hats off to the 24 member states who have completely ignored the EU. If only we were one of them!
“Telecom laws are classic tools of EU control: they offer help, but actually create dependency. They then become impossible to untangle from domestic law in the event of a member state leaving. They are the legal equivalent of Japanese knotweed: once Brussels has tangled its way into a land, it becomes near impossible to dig out - and that's the way the EU likes it.”
“More than that, your friends don't take you to court: your enemies do. Today, the EU has told 24 of its 27 member states that it considers them an enemy. One can only hope that our European friends wake up to these Brussels bullies - and give them the boot, just like we did at Brexit.”

Observations

Does the EU Commission have a death wish?

It is fair to say that the EU Commission is not having a good week. It has come under attack from all quarters for its gross mismanagement of the EU vaccination programme, and for its quite extraordinary actions in breaking the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement by activating Article 16 of the N.I. Protocol of the Withdrawal Agreement.

In particular its President, Ursula von der Leyen, has been fighting a rearguard action to keep her job. (There is no realistic chance that she will be fired, however, as that does not happen in the EU.)

It might have been thought that now would not be the time for the Commission to issue legal proceedings against almost all of its member countries. Perhaps, however, this is just one more example of the sheer arrogance of the unelected apparatchiks who run the EU machine on a day-to-day basis.

Theresa, OfCom, and the Remainer Establishment

When we started researching this article, reading many dozens of official documents, we assumed that the UK would not have been caught up in these new EU regulations. Surely the fact that these laws did not have to be implemented until just before the UK completed its full exit on 31 December 2020 (and 11 months after the official legal exit on 31 Jan 2020) would have meant that the UK would be pursuing its own independent path?

How optimistic we were. It seems that OfCom has been busy on these EU regulations for the last four years, judging by all the documents we have reviewed.

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[ Sources: EU Commission | OfCom | Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) | UK Dept of Culture, Media and Sports ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Fri 05 Feb 2021

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Reader Comments 10

1. Eleanor Baxter , Friday, February 05, 2021, 09:59:

The beurocracy in Brussels will break up the EU more efficiently than we brexiteers could ever have dreamt off. There are rumbles of dissatisfaction between many member states and stuff like this can be the final straw for many. Brussels will be responsible for the breakup of the EU, no one else!

2. One eyed king , Friday, February 05, 2021, 10:59:

So the uk is a speedboat Ursula? One can only imagine comparative analogy if boris had not hobbled us and the opportunity to restore the rest of the industries stolen from us.
Imagine what could happen if the civil serpents were dealt with and the fu####g 5th column removed. Traitors to a man.
We are lied to denigrated and suppressed
We could do so much better

3. Mannie - Stoke , Friday, February 05, 2021, 14:57:

What an incredible story. Are these people mad? People are dying because of their incompetence rolling out vaccines and yet they have time for this? Thank God we're almost out of this mess.

4. Jackie Plenty , Friday, February 05, 2021, 15:10:

Are Cracks beginning to show?

5. Mike S , Friday, February 05, 2021, 15:25:

This, the vaccine debacle, the unnecessary chaos on the continent with haulage, the bad faith & potential breaking of international law on the island of Ireland, among other things displayed by the EU. Isn't it strange how all the Remainer's & Rejoiner's have suddenly seemed to have fallen silent on what was supposedly our error in judgement! Not much said about it by the MSM, BBC & other biased media outlets either! Case in point proved as far as Brexiteers are concerned? I absolutely think so!

6. Jon, Wales , Friday, February 05, 2021, 18:44:

The EU27 are subservient to unelected, unaccountable, appointed EU bureaucrats, headed by the incompetent VDL.
It now turns on its member states, and we recall it ignored Italy in times of crisis last year.
I hope the EU27 turn on VDL and oust her from power for her arrogant 'I don't care because you can't remove me' attitude?
Ms Von der Leyen, OWES A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO ALL UK CITIZENS for her recent conduct?
The UK is NOT responsible for her failures, and she should cease trying to pass the buck by blaming other people.
-
VDL's salary as I understand is €hundreds of thousands (I stand to be corrected); plus perks; huge pension; lavish dinner's; chauffeur driven limousines to ferry her around; and so on, ALL at taxpayers expense.
I ask what makes VDL so deserving of this luxury?
To ordinary good peoples of the EU27, remember you WILL do as you are told, because the unaccountable boss of the EU and her Commission you did not elect and cannot remove, say you must.
Thank goodness the UK got out when it did, though Brexiteers know we have many loose ends to address.
POWER WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY IS UNACCEPTABLE?
The EU27 should call time on the extravagant and expensive EU construct, otherwise there is little point electing officials for their domestic issues when a commission can override them, as they did (and still try) in the UK.
The EU27 are effectively regions of a dictatorial EU, and the above article proves how dictatorial the commission is.
Yet again, Brexit Facts4EU.org exposes the EU for what it really is, and I'm pleased the Express picked up this article, because thus far, MSM have not, and BBC / SkyNews are a waste of airtime when they fail to report (so what else do their journalists do I wonder)!
I am happy to maintain my monthly support to Facts4EU - Imagine where we'd be without them.
I trust readers who value these facts will join me and help support this site, be it large or small, it all adds up.

7. Gordon McGeachy , Friday, February 05, 2021, 19:17:

Excellent news and may there be many more such actions by the unelected cabal that run the EU - it will fall apart faster.

8. Ben Kibblewhite , Friday, February 05, 2021, 19:34:

The dominoes are beginning to fall. 👍🏻

9. William Pentelow , Saturday, February 06, 2021, 07:49:

@ Jon Wales "POWER WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY IS UNACCEPTABLE?" Yes funny that we have now got a government that has exactly that. I wonder what we will do when this government ends the election system completely? You may laugh but i actually expect no more elections will be allowed, YOU WILL DO AS MATT AND BORIS SAY. They have used a flu strength virus to fundamentally change and destroy our country.
@ The one eyed King, our industries will NEVER be restored to us that was never in the elitist plan. Only poverty will be available to the masses in the name of Covid and the green agenda.
Dear electorate when we open the extermination camps we will expect you to form an orderly line.
PROOF?
You need to Know only 2 things,
1 Covid. Excess deaths are below, yes BELOW the 50 year average.
2. We will all have electric cars? The UK would need 900% of the annual lithium production just to run its fleet. an impossibility .
The UK government knows both of these things are true, so it is lying through its teeth.

10. Jon, Wales , Saturday, February 06, 2021, 15:39:

William (9) - I wholly understand your response, so perhaps I should clarify "power without accountability is unacceptable".
My comment was of course aimed squarely at the unaccountable EU commission no-one voted for and no-one it appears can remove.
Clearly, there are rare occasions where temporary measures are required in the UK.
It remains my view that VDL should be ousted from her position of extraordinary unaccountable power (a matter for the EU27).
As an aside, there SHOULD be a radical overhaul (and massive reduction) of the UK House of Lords - which has more members in it than in the crazy world of the so-called EU [with a small 'p'] parliament, though at least the HL are part of the UK law making process.
Under no circumstances do I want a foreign elitist power governing our great country - a country I BELIEVE in, faults and all.
There is a world of difference between the UK and the EU [commission], for the electorate has the sovereign ability to remove MPs and government when it fails ordinary people, and can send them clear messages at any time to pull their finger out or they may lose the privilege we, the electorate, lend them at general and other elections.
That said, we must accept we're living through extraordinary times just now, and I for one have no complaints my life is presently turned upside down as we navigate this global health crisis, in addition to domestic issues. I realise my personal opinions on this differ to others, but we'll all get through it - for the better in my opinion.

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