SUPRANATIONALISM THROUGH INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND ITS LIMITS IN EUROPEAN TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Abstract

The recent proposal of a European Electronic Communications Market Authority (EECMA) by the European Commission has turned out to be the most high profile and controversial element of the latest review of the EU's telecommunications regulatory framework, begun in 2006. EECMA provides an important example of the ‘intergovernmental’ and supranational-level tensions which exist in European telecommunications governance. This article argues that creating EECMA, in the form proposed by the European Commission, would have amounted to a radical departure in the direction of supranationalism for a system which has developed over 20 years a largely ‘intergovernmental’ character. Despite telecommunications being widely viewed as one of the most Europeanized parts of the communications sector in terms of governance, the fractious and protracted politics of EECMA provide a candid illustration of both the persistent supranational aspirations of the European Commission and, by contrast, the robustness and ultimately determinative power of national level interests.

Keywords:

• communication studies
• politics
• regulation