Telecoms market analysts have posited that reducing the number of operators in European countries via consolidation would make the sector more financially robust and resource-efficient, thus unlocking higher levels of investment in advanced network technologies that the bloc needs to compete with its international rivals. For this reason, Spain has been using its six-month EU Council presidency to push for accelerated market consolidation, a policy agenda shared by the EU.
With the Commission’s investigation ongoing, Orange is taking action to alleviate Brussels’s fears ahead of the EU executive’s final decision this autumn. In late July, the French telco opened talks with the Commission concerning the transfer of remedies, and more specifically, assets in its retail business – the object of the Commission’s fair competition reservations – to secure the greenlight for its MasMóvil merger.