What Brexit means for net neutrality in the EU

[Commentary] One of the many implications of the Brexit vote may be that American Internet companies could have an escape valve from the European Union’s fundamentally flawed regulation for online privacy. The question is whether the same self-determination can also apply to other areas of Internet regulation. The UK decision to leave the European Union after more than 40 years is evidence of Europeans’ deep dissatisfaction with Brussels and its top down decision-making.

The EU’s network neutrality rules are a microcosm of this dysfunction. British telecom expert Martin Geddes argues, while the starting point of neutrality is understandable, its regulation has turned into something unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory. In the EU this has translated to proposed net neutrality guidelines from the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). In writing these guidelines, BEREC has, much like the FCC, stretched its statutory power to attempt to implement an extreme version of net neutrality, which the legislative branch did not approve. And much like the FCC, this process was championed by US-funded pro-net neutrality activists, including Barbara van Schewick. While the European Parliament may have rejected van Schewick’s amendments, she succeeded in having her language built into the guidelines through accepting BEREC’s invitation to a secret “expert“ meeting, thereby circumventing the democratic process.

[Roslyn Layton is PhD Fellow at the Center for Communication, Media, and Information Technologies (CMI) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Denmark.]