• European telecom CEOs want EU merger policy to give more weight to scale, investment, and innovation
  • The Commission is rewriting its merger guidelines but says protecting effective competition remains the core test

The fact

European telecom chief executives called on EU policymakers on 15 September to change course on connectivity policy, including merger enforcement. Connect Europe, whose members include Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone, said modernised merger rules should allow both in-market and cross-border consolidation where it supports investment and innovation at greater scale.

The intervention comes while the European Commission is revising its merger guidelines. Draft guidelines published in April explicitly consider effects on investment, innovation and future competition, but the Commission says the purpose of merger control remains preventing transactions that significantly impede effective competition. The final guidelines are expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The assessment

The disagreement is not simply over whether Europe needs more network investment. It is over how much weight future investment should carry when a merger also removes a competitor from a national market.

Operators want merger reviews to recognise that larger companies may have more capacity to fund networks, technology and cross-border services. The Commission's framework already allows companies to present efficiencies and propose remedies, but those benefits have to be supported by evidence and weighed against possible harm to competition.

That means revised guidelines would not automatically turn a four-operator market into a three-operator one. The change would matter if investment, innovation or scale arguments become easier to demonstrate and carry more weight in individual cases. For BTW readers, the next important change is therefore not another call for consolidation, but how the Commission asks operators to prove that fewer competitors would produce measurable network benefits.

What to watch

Watch the Commission's final merger guidelines, due in the fourth quarter, and the next major in-market telecom merger submitted under them. The useful evidence will be whether investment and scale arguments materially change the assessment, and whether any approval ties those claimed benefits to enforceable network, capacity or service commitments.