{"id":15848,"date":"2026-01-09T08:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T07:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/?p=15848"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:06:08","slug":"eu-digital-decade-review-breko-urges-eu-to-prioritise-fibre-safeguard-competition-and-provide-long-term-investment-certainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/2026\/01\/09\/eu-digital-decade-review-breko-urges-eu-to-prioritise-fibre-safeguard-competition-and-provide-long-term-investment-certainty\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Digital Decade review: BREKO urges EU to\u202fprioritise\u202ffibre, safeguard competition and provide long-term investment certainty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bonn\/Brussels, 9 January 2026\u202f<strong>As the European Commission closes its <a href=\"https:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/info\/law\/better-regulation\/have-your-say\/initiatives\/15514-Review-of-the-Digital-Decade-policy-programme_en\">public consultation on the review of the Digital Decade Policy\u202fProgramme\u202f(DDPP)<\/a>, the German Broadband Association (BREKO) calls for a clearer, more\u202frealistic,\u202fand investment-friendly EU connectivity policy. BREKO warns that without an explicit\u202fprioritisation\u202fof\u202ffibre, effective\u202fcompetition,\u202fand stronger long-term policy certainty beyond 2030, Europe risks falling short of its Digital Decade\u202fobjectives.\u202f<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BREKO welcomes the DDPP as an important framework for accelerating digital infrastructure deployment across the EU. However,\u202ffibre\u202finvestment momentum has weakened, particularly in large and capital-intensive markets such as Germany, due to rising financing costs, uneven demand, and limited long-term visibility.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEurope\u2019s\u202ffibre\u202fambitions will not be delivered through technology-neutral \u2018gigabit\u2019 targets alone,\u201d says Lisia Mix-Bieber, Head of Public Policy at BREKO. \u201cThe DDPP review should explicitly\u202fprioritise\u202ffibre\u202fas the reference infrastructure for fixed networks, extend deployment objectives beyond 2030, and safeguard effective competition, including a competition-friendly, non-discriminatory, and rule-based copper-to-fibre\u202ftransition framework.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>BREKO stresses that the current gigabit framing risks prolonging reliance on legacy copper networks, diverting capital away from\u202ffibre\u202fdeployment and delaying migration to future-proof infrastructure. BREKO also underlines that fair competition is crucial to keep deployment incentives strong. \u201cIf competitive pressure weakens, there is a credible risk that the incumbent will drastically slow its\u202ffibre\u202finvestment and roll-out pace, reducing overall market momentum, and undermining EU connectivity objectives\u201d says Lisia Mix-Bieber.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, BREKO highlights the demand-side challenge. While\u202ffibre\u202fcoverage has expanded, take-up\u202fremains\u202funeven and often insufficient to ensure financially sustainable deployment. Effective, competition-neutral demand-side measures are needed to quickly unlock the full benefits of\u202ffibre\u202fconnectivity.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, BREKO calls for reinforced EU support for private financing of\u202ffibre\u202fnetworks, including stronger risk-sharing instruments, an enhanced role for the European Investment Bank, and progress on the Capital Markets Union to improve access to affordable long-term capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bonn\/Brussels, 9 January 2026\u202fAs the European Commission closes its public  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15848"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15852,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15848\/revisions\/15852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}