European Parliament votes on European net neutrality
Today the European Parliament adopted a resolution on net neutrality at a European level. The resolution is adopted with an overwhelming majority of votes and calls on the European Commission to introduce net neutrality legislation.
During the European parliament’ debate yesterday, the majority of MEPs already voted in favour of a free and open internet and that this should be regulated on a European base rather than different legislations across Member States. The question though is how European legislation should be realised.
A resolution of the European Parliament has no legislative effect, it is merely a formal declaration of the EP's view on a certain issue. As such a resolution is a non-binding document. However, the Parliament does take into account its own resolutions while drafting and debating new legislative measures.
This resolution calls upon the Commission to explore legislative measures in the field of network neutrality. If such a proposal is drafted, we now know what the preferred policy direction of the EP is.
Before the Commission will deal with creating legislation, it will wait for a report on net neutrality of BEREC, the consultative body of European telecoms watchdogs. Therefore it may take a while before the European Commission will introduce actual concrete bills.
In the Netherlands, we already have a bill on net neutrality. In June this year, the Second Chamber adopted the bill and currently the bill lies before the First Chamber for approval. The bill proposes the following amendment to the Telecommunications Act: telecom providers and ISPs are no longer allowed in any way to block, delay or obstruct services and/or internet and telecom traffic, except where necessary for reasons of congestion management, safety, continuity of the network and suchlike.
Read more about net neutrality on FutureofCopyright.com:
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