Slovakia

[SK] Common Regulator for Electronic Communications?

IRIS 2004-7:1/28

Eleonora Bobáková

Department of International Relations Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission Slovakia

The Telecommunications Authority of the Slovak Republic, the Posts Administration and the Council for Broadcasting and Retransmission (CBR) plan to become the unified National Regulatory Authority (NRA) as of June 2005.

The idea of the Slovak Government to establish one common regulator for electronic communications came about in March 2003. The reason for the intended replacement of the existing three completely different bodies (the first- and second-mentioned are state bodies while the CBR is organised in a structure sui generis as it is subordinate to the Slovak Parliament only) by one single authority is based on the intention to save public monies.

In 2003, the CBR rejected the idea of merging with the Telecommunications Authority and Posts Administration. Although the 84th meeting of Slovak Government held on 5 May 2004 has interrupted the debate on a final decision concerning a common NRA, it seems certain that the NRA will be established. After calling for comments by the Government, almost every submission agreed more or less with the concept to merge posts and telecommunications services with the so-called content regulator.

The establishment of the new regulatory framework of the NRA would necessitate preparing and adopting completely new legal rules, which will replace the Act on Broadcasting and Retransmission of 2000, the Act on Electronic Communications (adopted in 2003 aimed at implementing the new EC telecommunications regulatory framework) and the Act on Posts Service of 2001.


References

  • Stanovisko Rady pre vysielanie a retransmisiu - odmietnutie konvergovaného orgánu pre oblasť telekomunikácií a vysielania
  • http://www.rada-rtv.sk/6/6.4.html
  • Rejection of the Government's plan by the CBR

  • Item 14 of agenda of the 84th meeting of Slovak Government), Number of document /UV-10169/2004 – submitted by Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunication

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.