Image: © Quality Stock Arts/Stock.adobe.com
The ECJ ruled that Ireland has failed to bring its telecoms regulations in line with an EU directive and that this failure ‘undermines regulatory practices’ in the EU.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has hit Ireland with a €4.5m fine for failing to comply with the bloc’s Electronic Communications Code.
This code is part of an EU directive that aims to regulate telecoms networks and their associated services, while improving connection speeds and bringing all EU member states under a single framework of telecoms rules.
Some of the goals of this code include making the EU more attractive for companies to invest in infrastructure and promoting risk sharing in the deployment of very high-capacity networks such as 5G networks.
The EU claims that the code had been adopted by most member states by 2022, but it appears Ireland is an odd one out, as the European Commission accused the country of failing to adopt this code.
Court documents shared by the ECJ suggest this issue has been ongoing for years, as the Commission claims to have formally asked Ireland in 2021 for details on how the directive was being followed.
After deciding that Ireland “had not adopted the provisions necessary to comply with that directive”, the Commission took legal action on 6 April 2022.
The ECJ has ruled in favour of the Commission, declaring that Ireland failed to adopt “the laws, regulations and administrative provisions” required to comply with the EU directive and failed to notify these provisions to the Commission.
The ECJ ruled that Ireland’s failure to follow the EU directive “undermines regulatory practices throughout the European Union” when it comes to the management electronic communications system, spectrum authorisation and market access rules.
“According to the Commission, Ireland does not actually dispute the allegation that it failed to fulfil its obligations, confining itself to relying on practical and internal circumstances to justify that failure,” the ECJ said. “However, failure to transpose a directive within the period prescribed in that directive cannot be justified by such circumstances.”
The ECJ appears to be taking a sterner approach in its handling of Ireland. Last month, the court imposed a €2.5m fine on Ireland for failing to fulfil certain obligations around the adoption of an EU directive aimed at online safety.
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
