Delegated Regulation of the EECC: the Countdown Begins

The delegated regulation supplementing the European Electronic Communications Code (directive 2018/1972) has been published today. The regulation contains more specific rules relating to several topics, including caller location information.

As the regulation has now been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the act will enter into force 3 days after publication.

Among the different requirements set out in the delegated regulation, there are sections that require EU Member States to submit information to the European Commission within a certain timeframe. With the publication of the regulation, these dates are now set.

For caller location information, new rules detail how “competent regulatory authorities” should determine criteria on how emergency communications should be located. The first caller location criteria will have to be adopted by Member States within one year after the entry into force of the legislation. The deadline for these criteria is March 5^th, 2024.

EENA intends to draft a recommendation on accuracy and reliability criteria for handset-based caller location. EENA intends to present its first findings during the EENA Conference (19-21 April, Ljubljana) and publish its final recommendation in September 2023, so that Member States have time to consider our recommendations and submit fully realised criteria to the European Commission within the timeframe.

On accessibility, EU Member States are required to assess how their national systems meet the new ‘functional equivalence requirements’ outlined in the delegated regulation. They must do this by March 5^th, 2024.  

For Next Generation 112, the European Commission requires Member States to produce within nine months a roadmap detailing the country’s plan for PSAPs to be able to “receive, answer and process emergency communications through packet-switched technology” (article 7). The deadline for this roadmap is December 5^th, 2023*.

On IP-based emergency communications and Next Generation 112, we would like to recall that EENA offers an NG112 Education Programme and is ready to support efforts to lay down national plans. For more information on this programme, please contact [email protected].

*While the delegated regulation states that the roadmap is required to be produced within 9 months, the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union states the deadline to be November 5^th, 2023. We await further clarification.