Thousands of hectares of European forest fall victim to fire every year, and the trend is rising. The EU’s emergency response had to support overwhelmed member states in fighting the fires more and more often. Janez Lenarčič, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, therefore recently called for more extensive powers for the Commission. Germany, however, sees no need for a change. Timo Landenberger has the details.
For weeks, there have been whispers that the EU Commission wants to force Netflix, Google, Facebook and others to pay more for European network expansion – a proposal will be presented this fall. But now a growing number of stakeholders warn that this idea could backfire. Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport, Volker Wissing, wants one particular area to be left untouched. Falk Steiner explains the complicated debate.
Yesterday, Eurostat published the spring’s economic growth figures in the eurozone. They show that the economy did not grow as strongly as expected, as you can read in the News.
Pragmatism and idealism rarely go hand in hand. For Hannah Neumann, things are a little different. The 38-year-old MEP for the Greens/EFA would rather put the money spent on the military into climate protection, but the situation is what it is. Ella Joyner presents a Profile of the peace and conflict researcher.
More than 2250 forest fires were recorded by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) in the EU between January and mid-August 2022. Almost twice as many as in the entire past year and an increase of about 230 percent compared to the annual average of the last decade. Around 660,000 hectares of land have already burned – a new record, and this even before the end of the forest fire season.
The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable and forest fires are no longer a southern phenomenon. In Central Europe, too, flames are destroying thousands of hectares of forest, endangering the environment and the population. The EU states are finding themselves increasingly overwhelmed by the scale of the situation and are requesting assistance via the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
Eight such requests for assistance have already been made this year, the EU Commission reported. The requests came from Portugal, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Albania, and most recently, France. Helpers from Germany, Greece, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Romania and Italy are helping to fight the flames. Six firefighting aircraft from Sweden, Greece and Italy are currently in action.
“Climate change is also extending the forest fire season by several months, increasing the likelihood of more wildfire emergencies for European communities going forward,” says a Commission spokesperson. At the same time, the northward expansion of fire areas has created new sources of danger for many member states, he added. For these reasons, EU civil protection needs to be further expanded.
Janez Lenarčič, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, recently called to grant the Commission more extensive powers. The existing mechanism is reaching its limits with increasing and partly parallel requests, Lenarčič told Politico. Strengthening Brussels’ role could simplify and speed up the process. This would range from the option of deciding independently on the time, place and duration of missions to a permanent EU civil protection force including its own aircraft and crews, as former Commissioner Michel Barnier already called for in 2006.
Brussels plays a growing but still limited role in disaster response. The mechanism operates on a voluntary basis, with the Emergency Response Coordination Center serving as a hub. EU states, as well as six other countries that participate in the mechanism, specify which capacities and capabilities they wish to contribute. When deployed, the EU covers up to 75 percent of the costs. Countries around the world can activate the mechanism in a wide variety of emergencies, with forest fires accounting for about 17 percent of requests between 2007 and 2021, according to Commission data.
The mechanism has been strengthened several times in recent years. For example, the Commission has a total of €3.2 billion available for civil protection for the years 2021 to 2027. In addition, the rescEU deployment reserve was introduced in 2019, which currently consists of twelve firefighting aircraft and one helicopter, as well as medical equipment. In the coming years, the fleet will be further expanded, financed by the EU, stationed in Croatia, France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and controlled by respective national authorities.
The German government believes that the EU civil protection mechanism has proven its worth. According to the Ministry of the Interior, there is no need to change the procedure again, thus rejecting Brussels’ demands. “Further-reaching powers for the EU Commission also find their limit in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,” a BMI spokeswoman told Europe.Table. “This limits the EU’s competencies to promoting and supporting civil protection in EU member states and, in particular, excludes any harmonization of legislation.”
The German government also refused to participate in the procurement of firefighting aircraft. Firefighting in Germany is mainly carried out from the ground by a nationwide network of mainly volunteer fire departments. This enables targeted firefighting by trained firefighters with knowledge of the local area.
Alexander Held of the European Forest Institute (EFI) sees things differently: “The municipal volunteer fire departments completely lack experience in fighting an 800-hectare forest fire. Volunteer firefighters actually have completely different jobs, and from what I hear, most of them are incredibly frustrated,” says the forest fire expert. “Village fire departments have been defunded for decades and are not designed for weeks of operations all over Europe. Most of the time, they go to a traffic accident and are back home after two hours.” He believes that these structures need to be improved, for example by setting up competence centers or by increasing the international exchange of experience.
For Held, however, the main problem lies elsewhere. “Forest fires are a part of the ecosystem that we need to think about throughout the year, not just for a few weeks in the summer and then react frantically.” Instead of focusing on disaster response and suppression, the EU would have to focus more on forest fire prevention and create awareness for it in the regions and the forestry industry.
This would include an appropriate infrastructure to enable effective firefighting in the first place, as well as the creation of forest aisles and the need for forest conversion to more resilient landscapes. Here, too, an international network should be created for a more and better exchange. The best example, he said, is Portugal. “After the catastrophic fires with numerous deaths in 2017, there has been a change in thinking there,” Held says. “The focus in forest fire protection is now more on prevention.” Although fierce forest fires rage in Portugal as well,” without the new focus, there would be twice as many,” Held says.
The fact that the Internet has rapidly spread around the world is also due to the unique way it works: In theory, the network of networks is a technologically neutral middleman to which senders and receivers connect and allow data traffic to flow. Both sides pay for the respective costs up to the transfer points, or so the theory goes.
In practice, however, the model has pitfalls and peculiarities: The services of a small number of providers are particularly popular and are the cause of much of the data traffic on the network. At the same time, however, they also ensure the attractiveness of fast Internet access offered by telecommunications companies to consumers – who request content from these providers.
For more than a decade, some telecommunications companies have been calling for a change in cost distribution: Content providers should bear a larger share of the costs. In the last major debate, telecommunications providers wanted to make service providers pay for prioritized transport of certain types of content – which would have automatically affected the rest of the data traffic. Since then, so-called network neutrality has been enshrined, which prohibits unjustified unequal treatment of data in networks that is not requested by consumers.
But years have passed since then. The model now advocated by some and also touted by the EU Commission as a possible solution: “Sending Party Pays“. The side sending the data is to pay, at least more than in the past. Network capacities have grown dramatically since then. But further investments are to be made to implement fast mobile communications and fiber-optic connections throughout Europe.
In particular, providers that offer almost exclusively or a lot of video streams are involved in a large part of the network traffic. Each movie stream in UHD quality requires between 10 and 25 megabits per second of bandwidth; in HD quality, this is still around 5 megabits per second to achieve smooth and clear video quality. With hundreds of millions of users in Europe, this results in huge amounts of data.
According to data from the French telecommunications regulator ARCEP, the video streaming service Netflix causes the highest network traffic. In 2020, the provider alone accounted for more than 20 percent of Internet data traffic to consumers. Alphabet’s Google, which also includes YouTube, ranks second in France with well over 10 percent. Third place, with 9 percent, is held by Akamai – a specialized service provider that primarily offers streaming services for third parties and operates its own content distribution network (CDN) for this purpose. Facebook and its services come in fourth place in the ARCEP statistics, followed by cloud providers such as Amazon.
The costs of expanding fiber-optic connections and mobile networks are currently largely borne by network operators, says Frederic Ufer, and a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money is also spent on promoting broadband expansion. The fact that the EU Commission has even opened a discussion on the possible participation of tech companies in the costs of digital infrastructures in Europe is generally welcomed by the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Service Providers.
“Recent studies show that Internet Protocol traffic continues to grow steadily, while becoming increasingly concentrated by about six so-called over-the-top providers, accounting for half of all IP traffic,” said VATM Managing Director Frederic Ufer. “Eighty percent of IP traffic comes from the three segments video, social media and gaming.”
Seeing this reality and drawing conclusions from it is the task of the EU Commission and the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). Among other things, the evaluation of the “Broadband Reduction Directive” (BRCD) is currently being discussed, and there is an intense debate in expert circles about a possible “Connectivity Infrastructure Act” – but the Commission is not willing to confirm such a legislative title at present. Part of the current problem: What exactly the Commission plans is not publicly announced and remains vague. Again and again, fall 2022 is mentioned as the targeted date – which the Commission also refuses to confirm. At the same time, there is no shortage of reactions and criticism.
Vestager herself opened the debate in early May when, according to Reuters, she said at a conference: “Tech giants such as Google, Meta and Netflix may have to bear some of the cost of Europe’s telecoms network.” But neither Vestager nor Thierry Breton, who has always worked hard to come up with creative EU proposals, have been particularly specific ever since. Agreeing on fees between participants is basically a matter for market players, the Commission says.
The topic is supposed to be viewed in a larger context, such as the connectivity goals set for the digital decade until 2030. The intention is to increase investment in more modern and resilient networks in the EU, according to the EU Commission. “In this context, the issue of a fair and proportionate contribution to the cost of public goods, services and infrastructures is part of our consideration,” a spokesperson informs, “and in full respect of EU net neutrality rules.”
This is precisely what many critics doubt. “Net neutrality is a high asset of digital policy that we will continue to protect,” Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport, Volker Wissing (FDP), responded to a Europe.Table question. “The equal treatment of data traffic on the Net must be preserved. It is an essential factor for the success of the Internet and the diverse services offered on the Internet.” On behalf of the German government, Wissing joined six other EU governments in urging Vestager and Breton to engage in a due process involving all sides and member states in order to deliberate on their ideas.
However, without already committing to whether he completely rejects changes to the payment model. It is not yet clear “which regulations the EU Commission would like to propose in this context with regard to possible cost sharing in network expansion,” a spokeswoman explains. “What is important here is a transparent process and an intensive examination of the demands as well as the concerns expressed, also with a view to the design options and the consequences of implementation.”
In a letter, 54 MEPs addressed EU Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton in early July. In it, they demanded to abandon the idea: “Adopting a model that allows for or mandates access fees would be a disastrous return to the economic model for telephony, where telecommunications companies and countries leveraged their termination access monopolies to make communication expensive. Because phone companies had a monopoly over their customers, they could charge exorbitant prices to anyone seeking to call their customers. Broadband providers have the same monopoly over their customers. Allowing them to charge content providers for access could cause significant harm to the Internet economy.”
The MEP group called on the Commission to consult experts, the public and BEREC. They emphasized that there was no objective reason for a hurry.
The VATM refrains from going so far as to aggressively demand providers to participate in the expansion of infrastructure. Instead, it fears something else: That possible additional revenues may not be available for infrastructure expansion at all, but will remain in the public accounts. “The whole issue is far too sensitive to rush it now,” warns Ufer. “Whatever the solution, it must not risk distortions in an extremely sensitive competitive telecommunications market.”
The German Consumer Association, which does not often agree with the VATM, also takes a comprehensive position this week. The consumer advocates see a sending-party-pays model critically: “The negative effects on competition, net neutrality and consumer interests outweigh the profit interests of the telecommunications industry,” says Susanne Blohm, a consultant in the Digital and Media team. “Participation in the political and legislative process is complicated by the non-transparent approach of the EU Commission,” the association does not hold back on criticism of Vestager and Breton in its position paper.
Currently, the joint body of TC regulators in the EU BEREC is evaluating whether a change to the established payment model may be desirable. BEREC has come to the preliminary conclusion that a legislated sending-party-pays model would not have had the desired success in South Korea. A report by WIK GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Network Agency already pointed this out earlier. Now, a regular BEREC consultation process is to provide clarity by mid-2023 whether and, if so, which changes to the existing model might be feasible and effective. Whether the Commission wants to wait that long, however, is an open question.
AfD and Pegida are part of the reason why Hannah Neumann sits in the EU Parliament today. In 2016, Neumann, who holds a Ph.D. in peace and conflict studies, was so shocked by the rise of the far-right in Germany, Brexit and the election of Donald Trump that she decided to get involved in politics. She started as district chair for the Green Party in Berlin-Lichtenberg.
“As someone who has spent a lot of time in war zones, I have seen how quickly hatred turns into violence, which then escalates and tears a society apart,” says the 38-year-old from Rhineland-Palatinate. She at least wanted to be able to say that she had done something about it if things really went wrong in Europe. Before entering politics, Hannah Neumann worked as a conflict and peace researcher at the Free University of Berlin, where she examined how peace agreements are implemented at the local level. For this, she traveled primarily to the Philippines and Liberia.
The path into politics proved to be the right one. In 2019, the Green Party invited her to run for the EU Parliament. “And that worked out amazingly well.”
In Brussels and Strasbourg, she remains interested in foreign policy. She chairs the delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula and serves in several subcommittees, such as human rights or security and defense. This year alone, she traveled on behalf of the European Parliament to Iraq, Qatar, Afghanistan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Colombia.
But with the Russian war in Ukraine, there is also enough for a foreign policy-minded MP to do in Europe. Like many left-leaning politicians, she has adopted positions in recent months that are normally considered unacceptable. Neumann, on the other hand, is pragmatic. “On the arms deliveries to Ukraine, it was clear to me from the beginning that in this situation, frankly, it’s pretty ‘green’ to deliver weapons.” Only if international law is respected can disarmament be discussed, she said.
Increasing military spending in state budgets must be painful for a Green, right? “I think everyone would rather spend the money on climate protection than on the military,” she sighs. Unfortunately, the situation is what it is, she says.
Once again pragmatic, Neumann is now campaigning for joint procurement of armaments in Europe. However, she says, care must be taken to ensure that the arms companies do not profit unnecessarily from this. “We have to make sure that we get a lot of weapons for the money,” she says. The issue will be a priority in the coming months.
“These are difficult policy questions, but I certainly didn’t get into politics to represent holier-than-thou green positions.” The point was to make the best possible decisions.
The pragmatist also takes time for her ideals. She often talks about the underrepresentation of women in the male-dominated world of foreign policy. In Brussels, Neumann says, it took a while for people to listen to her. That’s why she participates in “SHEcurity.” The index highlights gender inequalities and gathers data on politics, diplomacy, the military, police, civilian and military missions, and the economy. The goal is simple: “More women in foreign and security policy.” Ella Joyner
Thousands of hectares of European forest fall victim to fire every year, and the trend is rising. The EU’s emergency response had to support overwhelmed member states in fighting the fires more and more often. Janez Lenarčič, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, therefore recently called for more extensive powers for the Commission. Germany, however, sees no need for a change. Timo Landenberger has the details.
For weeks, there have been whispers that the EU Commission wants to force Netflix, Google, Facebook and others to pay more for European network expansion – a proposal will be presented this fall. But now a growing number of stakeholders warn that this idea could backfire. Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport, Volker Wissing, wants one particular area to be left untouched. Falk Steiner explains the complicated debate.
Yesterday, Eurostat published the spring’s economic growth figures in the eurozone. They show that the economy did not grow as strongly as expected, as you can read in the News.
Pragmatism and idealism rarely go hand in hand. For Hannah Neumann, things are a little different. The 38-year-old MEP for the Greens/EFA would rather put the money spent on the military into climate protection, but the situation is what it is. Ella Joyner presents a Profile of the peace and conflict researcher.
More than 2250 forest fires were recorded by the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) in the EU between January and mid-August 2022. Almost twice as many as in the entire past year and an increase of about 230 percent compared to the annual average of the last decade. Around 660,000 hectares of land have already burned – a new record, and this even before the end of the forest fire season.
The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly noticeable and forest fires are no longer a southern phenomenon. In Central Europe, too, flames are destroying thousands of hectares of forest, endangering the environment and the population. The EU states are finding themselves increasingly overwhelmed by the scale of the situation and are requesting assistance via the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism.
Eight such requests for assistance have already been made this year, the EU Commission reported. The requests came from Portugal, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Albania, and most recently, France. Helpers from Germany, Greece, Sweden, Poland, Austria, Romania and Italy are helping to fight the flames. Six firefighting aircraft from Sweden, Greece and Italy are currently in action.
“Climate change is also extending the forest fire season by several months, increasing the likelihood of more wildfire emergencies for European communities going forward,” says a Commission spokesperson. At the same time, the northward expansion of fire areas has created new sources of danger for many member states, he added. For these reasons, EU civil protection needs to be further expanded.
Janez Lenarčič, EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, recently called to grant the Commission more extensive powers. The existing mechanism is reaching its limits with increasing and partly parallel requests, Lenarčič told Politico. Strengthening Brussels’ role could simplify and speed up the process. This would range from the option of deciding independently on the time, place and duration of missions to a permanent EU civil protection force including its own aircraft and crews, as former Commissioner Michel Barnier already called for in 2006.
Brussels plays a growing but still limited role in disaster response. The mechanism operates on a voluntary basis, with the Emergency Response Coordination Center serving as a hub. EU states, as well as six other countries that participate in the mechanism, specify which capacities and capabilities they wish to contribute. When deployed, the EU covers up to 75 percent of the costs. Countries around the world can activate the mechanism in a wide variety of emergencies, with forest fires accounting for about 17 percent of requests between 2007 and 2021, according to Commission data.
The mechanism has been strengthened several times in recent years. For example, the Commission has a total of €3.2 billion available for civil protection for the years 2021 to 2027. In addition, the rescEU deployment reserve was introduced in 2019, which currently consists of twelve firefighting aircraft and one helicopter, as well as medical equipment. In the coming years, the fleet will be further expanded, financed by the EU, stationed in Croatia, France, Greece, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and controlled by respective national authorities.
The German government believes that the EU civil protection mechanism has proven its worth. According to the Ministry of the Interior, there is no need to change the procedure again, thus rejecting Brussels’ demands. “Further-reaching powers for the EU Commission also find their limit in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,” a BMI spokeswoman told Europe.Table. “This limits the EU’s competencies to promoting and supporting civil protection in EU member states and, in particular, excludes any harmonization of legislation.”
The German government also refused to participate in the procurement of firefighting aircraft. Firefighting in Germany is mainly carried out from the ground by a nationwide network of mainly volunteer fire departments. This enables targeted firefighting by trained firefighters with knowledge of the local area.
Alexander Held of the European Forest Institute (EFI) sees things differently: “The municipal volunteer fire departments completely lack experience in fighting an 800-hectare forest fire. Volunteer firefighters actually have completely different jobs, and from what I hear, most of them are incredibly frustrated,” says the forest fire expert. “Village fire departments have been defunded for decades and are not designed for weeks of operations all over Europe. Most of the time, they go to a traffic accident and are back home after two hours.” He believes that these structures need to be improved, for example by setting up competence centers or by increasing the international exchange of experience.
For Held, however, the main problem lies elsewhere. “Forest fires are a part of the ecosystem that we need to think about throughout the year, not just for a few weeks in the summer and then react frantically.” Instead of focusing on disaster response and suppression, the EU would have to focus more on forest fire prevention and create awareness for it in the regions and the forestry industry.
This would include an appropriate infrastructure to enable effective firefighting in the first place, as well as the creation of forest aisles and the need for forest conversion to more resilient landscapes. Here, too, an international network should be created for a more and better exchange. The best example, he said, is Portugal. “After the catastrophic fires with numerous deaths in 2017, there has been a change in thinking there,” Held says. “The focus in forest fire protection is now more on prevention.” Although fierce forest fires rage in Portugal as well,” without the new focus, there would be twice as many,” Held says.
The fact that the Internet has rapidly spread around the world is also due to the unique way it works: In theory, the network of networks is a technologically neutral middleman to which senders and receivers connect and allow data traffic to flow. Both sides pay for the respective costs up to the transfer points, or so the theory goes.
In practice, however, the model has pitfalls and peculiarities: The services of a small number of providers are particularly popular and are the cause of much of the data traffic on the network. At the same time, however, they also ensure the attractiveness of fast Internet access offered by telecommunications companies to consumers – who request content from these providers.
For more than a decade, some telecommunications companies have been calling for a change in cost distribution: Content providers should bear a larger share of the costs. In the last major debate, telecommunications providers wanted to make service providers pay for prioritized transport of certain types of content – which would have automatically affected the rest of the data traffic. Since then, so-called network neutrality has been enshrined, which prohibits unjustified unequal treatment of data in networks that is not requested by consumers.
But years have passed since then. The model now advocated by some and also touted by the EU Commission as a possible solution: “Sending Party Pays“. The side sending the data is to pay, at least more than in the past. Network capacities have grown dramatically since then. But further investments are to be made to implement fast mobile communications and fiber-optic connections throughout Europe.
In particular, providers that offer almost exclusively or a lot of video streams are involved in a large part of the network traffic. Each movie stream in UHD quality requires between 10 and 25 megabits per second of bandwidth; in HD quality, this is still around 5 megabits per second to achieve smooth and clear video quality. With hundreds of millions of users in Europe, this results in huge amounts of data.
According to data from the French telecommunications regulator ARCEP, the video streaming service Netflix causes the highest network traffic. In 2020, the provider alone accounted for more than 20 percent of Internet data traffic to consumers. Alphabet’s Google, which also includes YouTube, ranks second in France with well over 10 percent. Third place, with 9 percent, is held by Akamai – a specialized service provider that primarily offers streaming services for third parties and operates its own content distribution network (CDN) for this purpose. Facebook and its services come in fourth place in the ARCEP statistics, followed by cloud providers such as Amazon.
The costs of expanding fiber-optic connections and mobile networks are currently largely borne by network operators, says Frederic Ufer, and a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money is also spent on promoting broadband expansion. The fact that the EU Commission has even opened a discussion on the possible participation of tech companies in the costs of digital infrastructures in Europe is generally welcomed by the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Service Providers.
“Recent studies show that Internet Protocol traffic continues to grow steadily, while becoming increasingly concentrated by about six so-called over-the-top providers, accounting for half of all IP traffic,” said VATM Managing Director Frederic Ufer. “Eighty percent of IP traffic comes from the three segments video, social media and gaming.”
Seeing this reality and drawing conclusions from it is the task of the EU Commission and the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). Among other things, the evaluation of the “Broadband Reduction Directive” (BRCD) is currently being discussed, and there is an intense debate in expert circles about a possible “Connectivity Infrastructure Act” – but the Commission is not willing to confirm such a legislative title at present. Part of the current problem: What exactly the Commission plans is not publicly announced and remains vague. Again and again, fall 2022 is mentioned as the targeted date – which the Commission also refuses to confirm. At the same time, there is no shortage of reactions and criticism.
Vestager herself opened the debate in early May when, according to Reuters, she said at a conference: “Tech giants such as Google, Meta and Netflix may have to bear some of the cost of Europe’s telecoms network.” But neither Vestager nor Thierry Breton, who has always worked hard to come up with creative EU proposals, have been particularly specific ever since. Agreeing on fees between participants is basically a matter for market players, the Commission says.
The topic is supposed to be viewed in a larger context, such as the connectivity goals set for the digital decade until 2030. The intention is to increase investment in more modern and resilient networks in the EU, according to the EU Commission. “In this context, the issue of a fair and proportionate contribution to the cost of public goods, services and infrastructures is part of our consideration,” a spokesperson informs, “and in full respect of EU net neutrality rules.”
This is precisely what many critics doubt. “Net neutrality is a high asset of digital policy that we will continue to protect,” Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport, Volker Wissing (FDP), responded to a Europe.Table question. “The equal treatment of data traffic on the Net must be preserved. It is an essential factor for the success of the Internet and the diverse services offered on the Internet.” On behalf of the German government, Wissing joined six other EU governments in urging Vestager and Breton to engage in a due process involving all sides and member states in order to deliberate on their ideas.
However, without already committing to whether he completely rejects changes to the payment model. It is not yet clear “which regulations the EU Commission would like to propose in this context with regard to possible cost sharing in network expansion,” a spokeswoman explains. “What is important here is a transparent process and an intensive examination of the demands as well as the concerns expressed, also with a view to the design options and the consequences of implementation.”
In a letter, 54 MEPs addressed EU Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager and Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton in early July. In it, they demanded to abandon the idea: “Adopting a model that allows for or mandates access fees would be a disastrous return to the economic model for telephony, where telecommunications companies and countries leveraged their termination access monopolies to make communication expensive. Because phone companies had a monopoly over their customers, they could charge exorbitant prices to anyone seeking to call their customers. Broadband providers have the same monopoly over their customers. Allowing them to charge content providers for access could cause significant harm to the Internet economy.”
The MEP group called on the Commission to consult experts, the public and BEREC. They emphasized that there was no objective reason for a hurry.
The VATM refrains from going so far as to aggressively demand providers to participate in the expansion of infrastructure. Instead, it fears something else: That possible additional revenues may not be available for infrastructure expansion at all, but will remain in the public accounts. “The whole issue is far too sensitive to rush it now,” warns Ufer. “Whatever the solution, it must not risk distortions in an extremely sensitive competitive telecommunications market.”
The German Consumer Association, which does not often agree with the VATM, also takes a comprehensive position this week. The consumer advocates see a sending-party-pays model critically: “The negative effects on competition, net neutrality and consumer interests outweigh the profit interests of the telecommunications industry,” says Susanne Blohm, a consultant in the Digital and Media team. “Participation in the political and legislative process is complicated by the non-transparent approach of the EU Commission,” the association does not hold back on criticism of Vestager and Breton in its position paper.
Currently, the joint body of TC regulators in the EU BEREC is evaluating whether a change to the established payment model may be desirable. BEREC has come to the preliminary conclusion that a legislated sending-party-pays model would not have had the desired success in South Korea. A report by WIK GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Network Agency already pointed this out earlier. Now, a regular BEREC consultation process is to provide clarity by mid-2023 whether and, if so, which changes to the existing model might be feasible and effective. Whether the Commission wants to wait that long, however, is an open question.
AfD and Pegida are part of the reason why Hannah Neumann sits in the EU Parliament today. In 2016, Neumann, who holds a Ph.D. in peace and conflict studies, was so shocked by the rise of the far-right in Germany, Brexit and the election of Donald Trump that she decided to get involved in politics. She started as district chair for the Green Party in Berlin-Lichtenberg.
“As someone who has spent a lot of time in war zones, I have seen how quickly hatred turns into violence, which then escalates and tears a society apart,” says the 38-year-old from Rhineland-Palatinate. She at least wanted to be able to say that she had done something about it if things really went wrong in Europe. Before entering politics, Hannah Neumann worked as a conflict and peace researcher at the Free University of Berlin, where she examined how peace agreements are implemented at the local level. For this, she traveled primarily to the Philippines and Liberia.
The path into politics proved to be the right one. In 2019, the Green Party invited her to run for the EU Parliament. “And that worked out amazingly well.”
In Brussels and Strasbourg, she remains interested in foreign policy. She chairs the delegation for relations with the Arabian Peninsula and serves in several subcommittees, such as human rights or security and defense. This year alone, she traveled on behalf of the European Parliament to Iraq, Qatar, Afghanistan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Colombia.
But with the Russian war in Ukraine, there is also enough for a foreign policy-minded MP to do in Europe. Like many left-leaning politicians, she has adopted positions in recent months that are normally considered unacceptable. Neumann, on the other hand, is pragmatic. “On the arms deliveries to Ukraine, it was clear to me from the beginning that in this situation, frankly, it’s pretty ‘green’ to deliver weapons.” Only if international law is respected can disarmament be discussed, she said.
Increasing military spending in state budgets must be painful for a Green, right? “I think everyone would rather spend the money on climate protection than on the military,” she sighs. Unfortunately, the situation is what it is, she says.
Once again pragmatic, Neumann is now campaigning for joint procurement of armaments in Europe. However, she says, care must be taken to ensure that the arms companies do not profit unnecessarily from this. “We have to make sure that we get a lot of weapons for the money,” she says. The issue will be a priority in the coming months.
“These are difficult policy questions, but I certainly didn’t get into politics to represent holier-than-thou green positions.” The point was to make the best possible decisions.
The pragmatist also takes time for her ideals. She often talks about the underrepresentation of women in the male-dominated world of foreign policy. In Brussels, Neumann says, it took a while for people to listen to her. That’s why she participates in “SHEcurity.” The index highlights gender inequalities and gathers data on politics, diplomacy, the military, police, civilian and military missions, and the economy. The goal is simple: “More women in foreign and security policy.” Ella Joyner
