Vilnius, May 28, 2015 – the Lithuanian Free Market Institute hosted a discussion “Competition in the Digital Single Market”. The discussion was aimed at clarifying whether the measures provided in the European Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy will open up new digital sector opportunities for the European market.
The discussion was attended by business representatives as well as other professionals those work is closely related to the digital market: lawyers, policy makers and business associations. Though the attended agreed that the aims and the idea of the Digital Single Market itself are commendable, some of the measures remain worrying. According to businesses, for example, prohibitions on roaming prices may bring a loss of approximately €75 million to the telecommunications sector of Lithuania. The net neutrality policy would bring unjustified data transfer equalization. For instance, online banking which requires a stable high bandwidth connection will be given the same importance as any daily entertainment portal.
However, regardless of the concerns addressed, the aims of the strategy are generally seen as positive, because they may bring about the same economic revolution as that brought by the establishment of the Single Market. In his closing speech of the discussion, LFMI President Žilvinas Šilėnas concluded that “it is of vital importance that the Commission focus on the removal of artificial regulatory barriers rather than natural differences such as roaming prices and differentiated bandwidth.
