BRUSSELS — The companies that run the invisible digital networks powering daily life in Europe are piling on the pressure ahead of January reforms, which they argue present a pivotal opportunity for the EU to fix past mistakes.

After years of discussion and lobbying, the European Commission is finally preparing to drop a long-awaited blueprint to upgrade digital networks and support the telecommunications industry. The Digital Networks Act (DNA), set to land on Jan. 20, will overhaul the EU’s currentrulebook in a bid to support the rollout of 5G and fiber and boost investment.

Big telecom companies have long argued that stifling regulations and a fragmented single market have made it hard for them to scale and earn sustainable profits in Europe — which, in turn, has led to lower-quality mobile and internet services.

Thebrainchild of former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton — who had worked as an executive at telecoms companies including France Télécom — the plan to reform the ruleshas faced strong headwinds since it was announced in 2023, with significant debate over what should change.

The many points of dispute include a fight over whether data-hungry platforms such as TikTok, Netflix and Google’s YouTube should help foot the bill for digital network expansion.

There are also questions over how the EU handles net neutrality — the principle that service providers must treat all traffic equally, without throttling or censoring — and whether it should increase regulatory pressure on legacy operators to open their networks to competitors.

The fact that the proposal will land after the departure of Breton — who was a highly visible advocate for the industry in Brussels — has raised the telecom industry’s concerns that they are not being taken seriously.

But opponents to sweeping reforms, ranging from smaller operators and regulators to capitals and tech firms,have long challenged the EU executive’s premise that Europe is lagging in connectivity, with ailing telecom operators unable to close the investment gaps.

It is “alarming that the European Commission is now proposing to relax regulation on former fixed monopolies,” a coalition of nine alternative telcos wrote in a letter over the summer, calling it a “backwards step” and warning against the risk of “re-monopolisation.”

Rollercoaster

The legacyindustry’s dream of a strong package of reforms rose onhopeful signals from Breton that change was coming, only to plunge as geopoliticscrossed items off the wish list and capitals explicitly signaled a very high threshold for change.

That is despite heavyweight backing from super-technocrats Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, who both explicitly advocated big reforms on telecoms in their reports on the bloc’s single market and competitiveness.

Yet arecent analysis by think tank European Policy Innovation Council predicts that only a third of Draghi's recommendations will see the light of day.

As the hopes started to fade, frustration grew among Europe's telco bosses. “I understand that the commissioner is an executive vice president, but the executive powers are not that clear, are not that executive sometimes,” Marc Murtra, the top executive of Telefónica,told an event in Brussels in September.

Murtra joined many of his peers to voice “serious concern that the bold reforms urgently needed to secure Europe’s digital future are being placed at risk by slow and timid actions" in an Octoberjoint letter.

Some lawmakers in the European Parliamentalso came to the industry’s defense amid "rumours suggesting that the proposed legislation, in its current form, might lack the necessary ambition."

Bumpy road ahead

The January proposal will fire the starting gun on many months of political debate as the proposal passes through Brussels’ legislative process.

The bill is expected to be resisted by EU capitals in the Council, whichhave long pushed back on ambitious reforms.

A coalition of six countries is already pushing back against plans to overhaul the rulebook, urging Brussels to keep “users at the center” in a joint position obtained by POLITICO.

“We must encourage measures that will remove barriers to investment and secure our infrastructure,” but those “which aim to have consolidation as a goal may reduce competition with potential negative effects for the consumer,” the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg and Slovenia said in the document dated Dec. 11.

“We do see the seeds of ambitions again from the Commission, but we have now seen again telecom ministers mobilizing," said a second telecom industry executive interviewed for this article.

Germany, France and Italy alsoshot down the Commission's expected bid, calling for a directive (which must be implemented by each country) instead of a directly applicable regulation, over concerns that a one-size-fits-all approach risks trampling national prerogatives and ignoring local differences.

Many officials in the ministries, the executive argued, “have been stuck in the telco bubble for so long they don't realize that telecoms is not telecoms anymore, it's digital connectivity.”

At a time when Europe rethinks its place on the map, an underwhelming reform risks “ending up with networks that are not European-owned, nor sovereign, safe, or secure — because investors will simply pack their bags and leave,” the executive said.