Since its founding in 2008 EMERG has been funded by the European Commission through NATP I-IV program. The last project, in combination with funding from the Commission, ran from 2016 to 2020, and over the last two years EMERG explored several options to ensure the long-term sustainability of the platform in case the Commission were to exclude further funding.
At Rome plenary meeting in 2017, EMERG started discussing on the future sustainability, investigating different options at stake, following a survey circulated on the benefits perceived by the Members over the years. The result showed that “best practice”, “cooperation” and “networking” were considered the most important.
In 2019, the EMERG plenary decided to give to the EMERG Sustainability working group, chaired by NTRA Egypt, as main task, to prepare a report summarising the various options, the associated conditions and their advantages and disadvantages for the EMERG future sustainability.
However, as main outcome of the Report, it is clear that EMERG needs the support of a third-party funding, preferably the European Union, considering the work done by the South-Mediterranean countries and their progress towards the approximation to the EU regulatory framework.
Background
The European Mediterranean Regulators Group (EMERG) was established on July 1st, 2008 in Malta, as an independent platform of National Regulatory Authorities for Electronic Communications Networks and Services.
EMERG is open to any National Regulatory Authority (NRA) concerned with the electronic communications sector that is member of or observer in the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) or party to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched within the framework of the Barcelona Declaration of November 28, 1995 and/or to the ENP-South countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy.
Currently, EMERG is integrated by the NRAs of 23 countries: Algeria, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, State of Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.
