Telecom CEOs meet in support of an ambitious Digital Networks Act on the occasion of the EU telecom council

5 December 2025, Brussels – Connect Europe, the voice of Europe’s leading connectivity providers, the IE University and the Arel Single Market Lab, an initiative launched by Enrico Letta in order to  follow-up on the implementation of the main proposals of his Report on the future of the Single Market, convened a high-level working dinner last night, ahead of today’s EU Telecom Council, to discuss the future of Europe’s digital competitiveness, infrastructure investment and technology sovereignty. 

The meeting brought together a unique group of European decision-makers from both the Council and the industry side. Executives represented included A1 Telekom Austria, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, MEO, Nokia, Orange, Proximus, TIM and Vodafone. Countries represented included Denmark, Cyprus, Ireland as well as France, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia and Poland. The discussion was opened by Enrico Letta, Dean of the IE School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs and Rapporteur of the high-level Report on the Future of the EU Single Market.

Enrico Letta: “Increased competitiveness and modern defense require a strong telecom single market”

Building on a recent, newly published Single Market Lab paper, Enrico Letta called for the creation of a real telecom single market operating at a continental scale and he supported the upcoming Digital Networks Act. He said: “The telecommunications sector must be recognised as a strategic asset, indispensable to Europe’s collective security. In this light, the ongoing defence debate can - and should - serve as a catalyst for the essential reform of the telecommunications sector at large. Simply put, there can be no credible European defence without a truly European telecommunications market. Europe’s fragmented telecom market severely constrains its capacity to deliver resilient, secure, and interoperable networks, which are an essential precondition for modern defence capabilities. Completing the Single Market for telecommunications is a strategic precondition for collective security”.

Connect Europe CEOs called for an ambitious Digital Networks Act regulation

Connect Europe members present at the event stressed their readiness to deliver next-generation networks, cloud infrastructure and AI-enabled services for all Europeans. They called for Member States to support the European Commission in providing real reform and sending a clear signal of discontinuity with the past, by promoting:

• A bold and ambitious Digital Networks Act in the form of a Regulation, laying the foundation for a genuine telecom single market.

• Simplification and deregulation, to mark a clear shift away from the current “regulation-first” environment that is harming investment conditions for fibre with outdated ex-ante rules,  and creating unnecessary red tape with burdensome sector-specific rules and national gold-plating.

• Scale, so European operators can truly compete in building a sovereign cloud, scaling up investment in AI, cybersecurity and network virtualization. The current fragmentation is harming European competitiveness and the achievement of a single market.

• Spectrum reform, to ensure a predictable, harmonised spectrum rules and longer license durations. Achieving full 5G and laying the basis for 6G leadership requires investment-conducive rules.

• Levelling the playing field with global tech platforms, so that regulatory asymmetries stop crippling our competitiveness in digital markets and imbalances in data traffic markets are addressed.

The event came at a time when the European Commission is working on a Digital Networks Act, which will be the first concrete step towards the implementation of the Competitiveness Compass in telecoms, building on the Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi reports.