\n<\/p>\n
Backed by Draghi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is promising to change that. She\u2019s asked her competition commissioner nominee, Spain\u2019s Teresa Ribera, to review merger rules with an eye to the \u201cinvestment intensity of competition in certain strategic areas.\u201d That in turn is hoped to spur new investment in digital networks to help Europe catch up with the power of Big Tech in the U.S. and the flurry of challengers coming from China.<\/p>\n
For European telecom giants it is a \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d moment to deliver the connectivity ecosystem that the sector needs to put the EU back on the map, Alessandro Gropelli, director general of lobby group Connect Europe that represent Deutsche Telekom, Telef\u00f3nica and Orange, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
But smaller telecoms operators, consumer advocates and competition enforcers fear the push could see customers paying more with no guarantees of better results. European consumers on average pay \u20ac16.15 for 20 gigabytes of mobile data compared to \u20ac37.87 in the United States, a\u00a0recent study<\/a>\u00a0by the European Commission showed.<\/p>\n Margrethe Vestager, the EU\u2019s outgoing top competition enforcer, also clapped back at Draghi\u2019s report earlier this month, saying: \u201cWe have not seen proof that bigger businesses invest more.\u201d<\/p>\n In his report, Draghi blamed Europe’s legal framework that had led to a \u201cmultiplicity of smaller players,\u201d as well as the \u201ccostly proliferation\u201d of laws across the 27 member countries.<\/p>\n That’s led to operators investing less in upgrading networks, which \u201cmay represent a risk for industrial companies in a phase when state of the art infrastructure is required to digitize manufacturing, supply and distribution chains,\u201d Draghi wrote. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n‘Dwarves here in Europe’<\/h3>\n