Digital Networks Act: telecom industry asks for bolder action to secure Europe’s digital future

Brussels, 21 January 2026 – Today, the European Commission adopted its proposal for a Digital Networks Act (DNA), marking a crucial moment in EU telecoms policy. With 85% Europeans saying connectivity is a basic need and over 60% SMEs looking at 5G to grow their business, reform is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.

However, apart from spectrum, the draft law appears to be a continuation of the status quo, lacking transformative proposals to foster much-needed investment. Connect Europe therefore calls on EU co-legislators to re-establish the level of ambition set out by the high-level reports of Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, firmly placing simplification, harmonisation, innovation and competitiveness at the centre of this reform.

We need a concrete implementation of the Draghi and Letta recommendations

The DNA rightly identifies connectivity as a key lever to achieve European competitiveness and tech sovereignty. We welcome the new objectives of the legislative proposal, which now explicitly calls for reinforcing competitiveness, creating a single market and promoting investment to the benefit of citizens. But we consider that they are insufficiently reflected in the actual measures foreseen by the text, while additional complexity and rules have been added throughout the proposal. Connectivity is the backbone of our economies, defence and democratic resilience. In a rapidly deteriorating geopolitical environment, the EU can no longer afford overregulation, fragmentation and underinvestment.

We must improve investment incentives for fibre, simplification and level playing field

The proposed rules on access affecting network investment fall significantly short of the ambition outlined in the Commission White Paper on the future of digital infrastructure and in Draghi’s explicit recommendation to “reduce country-level ex-ante regulation, which disincentivises investments and risk-taking, and favour rather ex-post competition enforcement”. Creating the right investment conditions requires less regulation and less complexity, not more. The final DNA needs to re-focus on promoting fibre deployment, rather than setting arbitrary copper switch-off dates. The proposed transition rules foresee complex and burdensome procedures, which we expect to have unintended chilling effects on competition, investment and customer choice. 

Implementing President von der Leyen’s simplification and single market agenda will require changes to the proposal, so that it becomes a much needed “omnibus for telecoms”. Overall, our initial analysis shows that the over 200 articles of the draft DNA increase red tape and leave duplications in areas such as privacy and user protection, hampering the sector’s competitiveness with no material consumer benefits. We must further harmonise requirements across the EU and move from sector-specific to horizontal rules. 

Europe’s competitiveness and sovereignty in global tech markets requires that we establish fair and competitive conditions also for telecom operators. This means removing the regulatory asymmetries that currently burden our sector, but also establishing a mandatory arbitration mechanism in data traffic markets. Voluntary measures will do little to reach negotiations at eye-level with big tech giants. 

5G and 6G innovation: strong support for the spectrum ambition, specialised services must be secured

With the draft DNA, the Commission aligns the EU to global 5G leaders by setting “unlimited licence duration by default”. We strongly support this approach and we call on Parliament and the Member States to maintain and strengthen it.

In addition, we must ensure regulatory certainty on both specialised services and network slicing, so that operators can offer advanced and innovative 5G services to their customers. Unless we correct the current fragmented and restrictive approach, Europe risks falling further behind other world regions in advanced 5G.

Connect Europe stands ready to support the co-legislators to make the final DNA a success in Europe’s path towards competitiveness.