Thursday 11 June, 2026
Europe’s connectivity infrastructure lags behind global 5G leaders in the Gulf, East Asia and North America and the European regulatory framework for telecommunications needs urgent and extensive reform. Without significant and rapid change, Europe will be unable to deliver the best-in-class networks on which its competitiveness, security and resilience aspirations depend.
The proposed European Union Digital Networks Act (“DNA”) represents a welcome acknowledgement of this situation, but in its current form it does not yet deliver the step change required to strengthen investment, innovation and competitiveness. The DNA contains positive elements, such as the legal form of the proposal, and most notably on spectrum, but it needs to do much more to support innovation and regulatory simplification. As it stands, the proposal fails to tackle regulatory asymmetries or to deliver necessary incentives for essential network investments. The draft lacks the ambition required to deliver European competitiveness and technological leadership.
New spectrum framework should take effect as soon as possible
The DNA proposals on spectrum reform offer Europe an opportunity to secure long‑term connectivity goals. Indefinite licences (or very long licences of at least 40 years) together with automatic licence renewal can immediately tackle investment uncertainty. This will foster industry incentives to accelerate 5G standalone rollout and create the right conditions for early 6G planning. Moreover, it is essential that these principles apply to existing 3G and 4G licences without delay, allowing Europe to keep pace at a global scale and build a resilient digital future.
Need for greater simplification and focus on horizontal rules
The DNA proposal does not achieve genuine simplification. Consolidating several legislative instruments into a single Regulation, alone, does not reduce complexity if substantive obligations remain in place, new sector-specific requirements are added, and a large volume of secondary legislation, guidance and review mechanisms is introduced. In practice, the proposal risks increasing reporting, compliance and governance burdens on operators, contrary to the European Commission’s wider simplification agenda. A more credible simplification effort would require the removal of duplicative and outdated rules, in particular in areas such as privacy, consumer protection, universal service and other end-user provisions that are already covered by horizontal legislation or no longer justified by market realities.
Similarly, the EU’s resilience objectives should be addressed through the existing horizontal frameworks, rather than sector-specific rules. It is also misguided to link General Authorisation to expanded and as-yet undefined cybersecurity obligations, and risks introducing parallel enforcement tracks, duplicative assessments, and uncertainty as to regulatory competence. By adding yet another layer of sector-specific rules, this proposal undermines simplification and further exacerbates the uneven playing field.
Aim for consistent rules across the digital ecosystem
The DNA correctly identifies structural imbalances in the wider digital ecosystem, but it does not translate this diagnosis into meaningful corrective measures and does not apply the “same services, same rules” principle. Telecom operators would continue to face the most extensive regulatory, security, data protection and compliance obligations, while other digital actors with comparable services remain largely outside the scope of these obligations. This is particularly visible in the areas of General Authorisation, satellites, interconnection, ePrivacy and Open Internet rules in the DNA. For example, the core Open Internet principles should be modernised, simplified and extended to all key actors to reflect the evolution of networks and the growing provision of innovative and more customized services. At the same time, these principles should explicitly carve out B2B services to allow for bespoke contractual services for sophisticated parties and ensure consumers can benefit from innovative technologies like network slicing.
In summary, while the proposed DNA is a necessary step towards Europe achieving a best-in class connectivity ecosystem, it fails to address several major challenges. It needs to be redesigned so that it can revitalise the European telecoms sector, and enable the EU to meet its objectives for high performance connectivity, advanced digitisation, and greater competitiveness.
