EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding has warned that the European Union will not ease its stringent regulation of the sector despite slowing growth. In an interview with the Financial Times (FT), Reding said regulation was, if anything, set to be stepped up to ensure incumbent players did not “squeeze out” newcomers during the downturn. “The rules in telecoms are even more important during the crisis than they are in normal times,” she told the FT. “They are competition rules and we must stick to them.” The comments come just as Reuters reports that a reform authored by Reding was yesterday agreed by the European Parliament and the bloc’s member states. The reform sets up a new pan-EU telecoms body, the body of European regulators in electronic communications (BEREC), which will take decisions by majority vote instead of the consensual approach adopted when national regulators in the EU discuss policy jointly. Reuters notes, however, that the reform – scheduled to be formally adopted by parliament in April or May – is a watered down version of the powerful pan-EU body that Reding had envisioned but member states found too threatening to national regulatory sovereignty.

The FT claims Reding’s latest comments will dash industry hopes of a gentler touch in the downturn, “despite the Commission’s own report on the state of European telecoms painting the bleakest picture in six years.” Revised figures from the institute that compiled the Commission’s report predict revenue growth of a mere 0.5 percent in 2008, with a contraction of 0.4 percent in 2009. The mobile industry in particular is one telecoms sector that has sought to fight Reding’s ongoing stringent regulatory approach. At the GSMA Mobile World Congress last month, CEO’s from some of the industry’s largest operators and vendors highlighted the role mobile broadband could play in lifting economies out of a deep recession, but also warned that success hinged on governments being able to provide the right regulatory framework to encourage investment in mobile services and infrastructure. At the time, GSMA chairman Alexander Izosimov described mobile as the “new lifeblood of the global economy.”