Simplified Article 7 notification procedure.

The Commission adopted today a new Recommandation on the so-called Article 7 procedure whereby national regulatory authorities ("NRAs") are required to notify the Commission and other NRAs of draft measures they intend to take. The text of the Recommandation is available here. As a reminder, the Commission also published in 2007 a Communication on Article 7 (see here and here). A link to all Article 7 opinions is available on this blog.

The main change brought by the Recommandation is the adoption of a simplified notification procedure for (i) decisions to withdraw regulation on markets no longer contained in the 2007 Recommendation on relevant markets, (ii) decisions not to regulate markets which remain effectively competitive in the Member State, (iii) amendments to technical details of a previously imposed remedy, (iv) extension of existing measures to another market player in a similar situation (particularly in call termination markets). In principle, the Commission will no longer comment on such measures.

National regulators are also explicitely asked to submit proposed remedies together with their market analyses.

As a result, the article 7 procedure now mirrors even further the one applicable to merger notification under EC competition law, where the use of simplified form CO is a standard practice.

Of course, it remains to be seen how this is going to be applied if/when the Body of European Regulators in Telecommunications ("BERT") will have its say in the Article 7 procedure.