EU-wide telecoms watchdog planned

The European Commission plans to merge national telecommunications regulators into a single EU agency, but individual agencies are opposing the plan.

The European Commission has promised telecoms watchdogs a 75 per cent budget increase as part of a package that would absorb them into a centralised EU regulatory agency, the news site EurActiv has reported. The proposal would grant national regulators more power, potentially allowing them to block measures in other countries, it said. 

But several regulators are fighting against the plan, arguing that it would compromise their independence by forcing them to answer to the Commission and make disagreement with its decisions difficult.