netCommons at the EU parliament
On May 23, 2018, three MEPs, namely Julia Reda (one of the hosts of the \netCommons organized workshop), Jan Philipp Albrecht and Max Andersonn, organised an event at the European Parliament titled "Economic Landscape under the New Telecommunications Code: How will the New Co-investment Rules and New Obligations Affect Small Providers in the EU."
The whole workshop was recorded and made available online, and it was reported by the University of Westminster News.
Two netCommons partners Maria Michalis (UoW) and Panayotis Antoniadis (NetHood), together with Ramon Roca (guifi.net) member of our advisory board participated in a panel with speakers including representatives from the European Commission (DG CNET), the BREKO --alternative fixed line providers, the BEREC, the EU ENISA (represented by Evangelos Ouzounis, Head of Secure Infrastructure \& Services), the small French provider Leonix, and the trade body DigitalEurope.
In terms of content, Maria Michalis and Ramon Roca joined their voices in the first panel to make three important statements:
- The vital contribution that small and community providers can make to strengthen communication markets' diversity and the establishment of high-capacity networks, a contribution that goes beyond ``filling the gaps;"
- CNs have for years been relying on co-investment;
- It is crucial that CNs have a seat at the policy table, and important that they are mentioned in the legislation as possible participants in co-investment schemes as this would increase the legitimacy of the CN model.
In the second panel, Panayotis Antoniadis, stressed the importance of language and proposed the analogy between organic agriculture and CNs (the organic Internet) as the right mental frame that this discussion should be placed.
