A budget reshuffle from the European Union has culminated in the European broadband budget being cut by 90%, from €9.2 billion (£7bn) to €1 billion (£859m) and leaving original broadband rollout plans in tatters.
The original plans were for every building in Europe to have access to a 30Mbps or faster connection by 2020, but they seem to have been kyboshed by this latest cut. The overall EU infrastructure investment budget has been slashed from €50bn to €24bn.
Neelie Kroes, digital agenda VP for the European Commission, expressed her disappointment at the verdict in a blog post whilst expressing relief that everyone was at least in agreement.
Kroes wrote: “I am of course disappointed that Member States could not agree on our proposal for the digital part of the Connecting Europe facility.
“But this funding will have to be exclusively for digital services: because such a smaller sum does not leave room for investing in broadband networks.
“I am ready to work and fight even harder, to develop a more favourable European market for investment in broadband, fixed and wireless.”
ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association which represents the likes of Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica and France Telecom, was understandably downbeat at the findings.
In a press release, ETNO executive board chair Luigi Gambardella said: “Given the key importance of high speed broadband networks and the potential leverage effect on private network investments of the CEF, this budget cut is a missed opportunity for Europe’s economic recovery.”
This has all been something of a turnabout given Kroes’ previous stance on broadband. Speaking at the CERRE Executive Seminar in Brussels two weeks ago, Kroes outlined her 10 steps to deliver broadband plans and said: “I’m in a fighting mood, and Europe can’t wait.
“If the last three years have shown me anything, it’s that broadband is essential to our future. That’s not something I can let go of. We must deliver that investment.”
Given that the UK has recently rolled out 4G in the form of Everything Everywhere, this could be something of a spanner in the works for universal super-fast broadband.
Of course, broadband isn’t the only technological element on Kroes’ agenda. The EU is also hoping to transform cloud computing, with plans – again for 2020 – to get a yearly €160bn (£127.6bn) European GDP boost and a net gain of 2.5m jobs.
These figures have since been questioned by the EESC, who in January issued a plenary wondering “whether these figures are not unattainable and disconnected from the reality of the IT domain”.
How do you think this will affect your broadband consumption in the coming years?
