ABSTRACT
This chapter explores and evaluates the increasingly prominent role which the European Union (EU) has played in the telecommunications sector in Europe over approximately 25 years. Telecommunications provides a case of extensive and well-developed EU policy activities in communications it is arguably the most EU-ized of the culture industries are examined. The chapter explains this evolution as a still ongoing process of shifting policy equilibria reached between national and EU levels in which a plethora of national and European level governmental and private actors have played roles in the precise nature of the equilibrium point reached at core policy junctures are explored. It illustrates how the role of public actors and public interest issues altered in telecommunications. The chapter explores the current ongoing review of the EU telecommunications policy framework, which is likely to lead to the next stage of policy equilibrium, making in the process some tentative predictions about its likely shape and significance.
