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This report presents the results of the implementation of the Media Pluralism Monitor for the year 2022 (MPM2023). The MPM is a holistic tool geared at assessing the risks to media pluralism. The MPM takes into account legal, political and economic variables that are relevant to analysing the levels of plurality of media systems in a democratic society. The Media Pluralism Monitor has been implemented, on a regular basis, by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, since 2013/2014.

This article critically discusses several issues regarding the unfolding of the Metaverse concept. Through the analysis of several sources, it demonstrates the rise of the Metaverse myth, as well as the innovation activities that are ongoing regarding the development of the technologies involved and the actual financial evolution of those companies, or funds, that are related to the Metaverse. Finally, it investigates some of the business model innovations and those that are expected to emerge, while comparing the Metaverse with the present status of the Internet. The conclusions suggest possible lines of analysis for future research.

Published online: 07 Jun 2023 In this paper, we perform a preliminary analysis of the technologies, firms and industries that may be affected by the possible futures of the metaverse, attempting to derive some hypotheses on the spatial effects of this process. We distinguish between two possible evolutive scenarios – the ‘metaverse shaped by reality view’ and the ‘metaverse shaping reality view’ – and factors affecting them, deriving implications for public policy planning. The first scenario presents relatively traditional core policy challenges: ensuring homogeneous availability of network infrastructures as well as the skills indispensable to catch the new technological opportunities at the local level, accompanying the reallocation of factors of production associated to disruption and addressing inequalities. In the second, the main challenge is more radical: to ensure that desirable features are incorporated in the emerging virtual worlds from the start.

Published online: 16 September 2022 The Study on Media Plurality and Diversity Online investigates the value of safeguarding media pluralism and diversity online, focusing on (i) the prominence and discoverability of general interest content and services, and on (ii) market plurality and the concentration of economic resources. With a focus on Europe, the project is funded by a tender from the European Commission to produce a study on Media Plurality and Diversity Online and involves four partner universities: CMPF (EUI); CiTiP (Centre for Information Technology and Intellectual Property) of KU Leuven; the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam (IViR/UvA); imec-SMIT-Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The purpose of the assignment was to describe, analyse and evaluate the existing regulatory and business practices in the two areas mentioned above, and finally to elaborate some policy recommendations. Data were collected from the database of the Media Pluralism Monitor (CMPF) and through desk research, online consultations and interviews with stakeholders. The contractor was able to call on a network of national experts across the Member States to support this work.

The chapter reviews some recent tensions emerging at the interface between telecommunications regulation and competition policy as a consequence of recent technological developments. We focus on the principle of technological neutrality, the regulatory and competition policy treatment of co-investment agreements, the regulatory relationship between fixed and mobile networks and the novel interpretation of network neutrality. The analysis highlights the novel complexities emerging from the fact that the availability of new technologies such as very high capacity networks (VHCN) and 5G/6G has triggered the explicit inclusion of the aim to stimulate investment in advanced connectivity solutions among the objectives of regulation. We suggest that these complexities should be acknowledged and addressed through greater institutional coordination – the same sort of coordination that has characterized the drafting of the original 2002 telecommunications regulatory framework.

Although still contested by some, the application of excessive pricing in the pharmaceutical sector has emerged as a relevant and useful tool for competition authorities in the European Union. Not aiming to be a price regulator does not stand in the way of acting against clearly unmerited high prices. Arguably the main concern of the application of excessive pricing is its potential harmful effect on innovation. This explains why exploitation abuses so far have been found in cases where innovation played at most a marginal role. In an earlier book chapter we argued that excessive pricing may also be applied in the context of regulatory exclusivity (e.g. patents and orphan protection), as long as innovation incentives are taken into account. The first theme of the present book chapter concerns how innovation has been dealt with methodologically in the excessive prices cases under EU law so far, and to what extent there might be a risk of hampering innovation incentives. The second theme in this chapter will be the relationship between excessive pricing and regulation in pharma. Specifically, we will look at what the cases may teach us on regulation. Rather than thinking of regulation and competition policy as alternative routes to tackle unfairly high prices, we think they should be seen as complementary. Regulation in pharma has among others to strike a balance between innovation incentives and affordability. Incidence of excessive pricing can be seen as a signal of unbalance that ultimately needs to be redressed in regulation.

This working paper includes a collection of case notes written by those national judges who attended the European Networking and Training for National Competition Enforcers (ENTraNCE Judges2021). The training programme was organised by RSCAS between November 2020 and October 2021, with the financial contribution of the DG Competition of the European Commission. The case notes included in the working paper summarise judgments from different EU Member States that relate to diverse aspects of competition law enforcement. This working paper thus aims to increase the understanding of the challenges that are faced by the national judiciaries in enforcing national and EU competition in the context of the decentralised regime of competition law enforcement that was introduced by Reg. 1/2003.

On 14th February 2022, the European Commission published a ‘Call for evidence for an impact assessment’ (Call for Evidence) and Public Consultation related to a new framework for standard essential patents (SEPs). The Florence School of Regulation: Area Communications & Media (FSR C&M) of the European University Institute (EUI) is thankful for the opportunity to provide its feedback. Our team of researchers has significant research, policy and training experience in the areas of telecommunications regulation, standardisation and EU competition policy. In this paper, we focus on four specific points raised by the Call for Evidence: 1) the necessity and proportionalityof any SEP licensing policy measure; 2) the measures that increase the transparency of the SEP landscape; 3) the optimal level of licensing in the production chain; 4) the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms for Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) licenses. Our contribution aims to be a catalyst for the debate about the appropriate SEP licensing framework.

This report was co-funded by the European Commission

The introduction of the fifth generation of mobile technology (5G) is expected to bring immense changes. These changes may be much more pervasive than any previous introduction of new mobile “generations”, and they are expected to influence the whole economy. For this reason, the global rush for 5G technology is not only considered crucial in economic or technological terms, but also for its implications in terms of policy, geopolitics, and national security issues. This paper presents an analysis of the patents in the most relevant fields of specialization connected to the 5G development. The period under investigation is from 2010 to 2019, and the data are extracted from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database. The analysis shows how the technologies and the specialisations needed to develop 5G are in the hands of a few countries around the globe, and that single European countries, taken in isolation, are not among these leading players. However, Europe, considered as a whole, competes well with the US and Asia in terms of patented innovations, suggesting the economic and strategic relevance of strong cooperation within the EU.

In the context of standards development, the current mechanism of negotiation of FRAND royalties frequently brings to undesirable litigation. This is mainly due to the fact that a relevant part of the information concerning the standard, required to stipulate complete license contracts, is revealed only after the standard itself has spread in the market. In this respect, we propose a litigation-reducing algorithm to determine the FRAND level of the licensing royalty. Unlike the current negotiation mechanism, this algorithm can be defined ex-ante, so to increase contract completeness, because it includes a Bayesian-updating rule, able to address the presence of ex-ante uncertainty. We derive the algorithm from a generic oligopolistic-competition model, so to deliver characteristics of applicability to both price and quantity competition. Simulations in a linear-Cournot framework suggest the algorithm calculates FRAND royalties and may be usefully applied to real-life cases.

Access to news and information has undergone profound changes in connection with the digitization and platformization of the economy. Diverse policy concerns emerge both from the supply-side of news production and distribution and from the demand-side of news consumption. The apparent richness of information sources conceals serious threats to the quality and diversity of online news, available on global platforms devoid of editorial responsibility and interested solely in maximizing advertising revenue. In this paper, after pinning down what we believe to be the most salient market and system failures in this regard, we summarize the range of policy proposals advanced to address the crisis of traditional media outlets and the unaccountability of platforms. Our own conclusion suggests three preferred lines of possible intervention in defense of media pluralism: regulated transparency, a novel form of EU-level direct financing and enhanced market power oversight.

This report presents the results and the methodology of the Media Pluralism Monitor (MPM2020), a tool geared at assessing the risks to media pluralism in EU member states and selected candidate countries (30 European countries in total). The Media Pluralism Monitor has been implemented, on a regular basis, by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, since 2013/2014 (last implementation MPM2017), based on a holistic perspective, taking into account legal, political and economic variables that are relevant to analysing the levels of plurality of media systems in a democratic society. This implementation covers the years 2018 and 2019. Consequently, the United Kingdom – which left the Union in January 2020 - is still analysed as being part of the European Union in this report.