EMERG at the 4-lateral Summit with BEREC, EaPeReg and Regulatel, Dubrovnik 29.9.2021

On 29th September 2021, EMERG participated to the four-lateral Summit with BEREC (European regulators), EapeReg (Eastern partnership countries) and Regulatel (Latin-America regulators) both in person with a delegation composed by João Cadete de Matos (EMERG Chair 2021, ANACOM- Portugal) Naama Henig (Moc Israel – EMERG incoming Chair) and Natasa Kuzmanovic (CRA Bosnia and Herzegovina, Member of the Permanent Secretariat), and virtually with many other Members.

The Summit was focused on the national/regional experiences put forward to deal with an increasingly interconnected world, due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, facing an exponential growing demand for high-quality digital connections, which put connectivity as a top priority in the agendas of many countries.  The ITU representative presented all the activities they are undertaking around the world and the European Commission presented its the Digital Decade programme policy, highlighting the digital principles and the need for future national strategic roadmaps to pursue the digital targets, at the national level.

At the first panel on connectivity, Mahmoud Hatem (NTRA – Egypt and chair of the EMERG connectivity expert working group) presented EMERG main activities aiming at connecting people in the Mediterranean region and the work done by the Expert groups in this domain, taking into consideration the approximation to the European Regulatory framework as one of EMERG main goals.

A second session of the Summit was dedicated to the cooperation among regional regulatory platforms and the importance to be connected, also at the institutional level, since challenges deriving from the digital world are very similar and require consistent and effective regulation, as well as oversight and consumers’ protection. EMERG was represented by its 2021 Chair, João Cadete de Matos (ANACOM – Portugal), who stressed the importance of cooperation among different regions on topics of common interest, mentioning the relations between EMERG, BEREC, EaPeReg and Regulatel, recalling the Memorandum of Understanding which is currently in place with BEREC and the fruitful collaboration with the Eastern Partnership countries, besides the participation of some of the EMERG members to the activities of the Latin-American group.

Finally, as an outcome of this Summit and recognizing this as a win-win event, all the regulatory groups reaffirmed their commitment towards the promotion of permanent collaborative initiatives aiming at deepening the future cooperation among them all.

Dubrovink, 29.9.2021