Why connectivity matters
Connectivity is the lifeblood of a modern, inclusive and competitive Europe. It empowers people with access to opportunity, strengthens our public services, and fuels the growth of our businesses and national economies.
But to achieve its full potential, Europe urgently needs forward-looking telecoms policies that boost investment in secure, resilient digital networks. With bold action and smarter regulation, we can unlock a transformative new era of prosperity, innovation and strategic autonomy.
Shaping the future of connectivity
Europe’s policy and regulatory choices play a decisive role in shaping the future of connectivity. A simpler, more consistent and more investment-friendly policy framework is essential to support network modernisation, strengthen resilience and enable digital services to scale.
As Europe seeks greater competitiveness, fairness, security and sovereignty, we advocate policy positions that help unlock long-term investment, support innovation and ensure customers benefit across the digital ecosystem.
Europe’s competitiveness depends on digital infrastructure that can scale, modernise and support the next generation of services. But Europe’s telecoms market remains fragmented by overlapping national rules, uncertain investment conditions and policy frameworks that do not reflect the long-term economics of network deployment.
Vodafone believes Europe needs a simpler, more consistent and more investment-friendly framework for digital communications. That means reducing duplication between national systems, modernising competition policy, supporting sustainable scale and creating more predictable rules for spectrum, networks and future connectivity platforms.
A stronger economic framework would make it easier to invest, innovate and deploy advanced networks across borders. It would also help Europe build the high-quality connectivity needed for industrial digitalisation, AI, cloud services, satellite-enabled services and the wider digital economy.
Our policy priorities:
- Create a simpler digital communications framework that removes outdated rules, cuts duplication between national systems and makes cross-border services easier to provide.
- Modernise competition and merger assessment so that investment, innovation, network quality, resilience and longer-term consumer outcomes are properly weighed alongside short-term price effects.
- Recognise the importance of sustainable scale and regulatory predictability in capital-intensive markets where network investment takes time to deliver benefits.
- Make spectrum policy more investment-friendly by setting clearer principles on licence design, award rules and renewals, with a stronger focus on long-term certainty and rollout outcomes.
- Ensure market, spectrum and network rules support the Single Market and allow future connectivity platforms to develop in a coordinated and practical way.
Europe’s networks are critical infrastructure. They support public services, economic activity, industrial digitalisation and national security. As networks become more advanced, distributed and software-based, they also become more complex, with new dependencies and new risks.
Vodafone believes Europe needs security and resilience rules that are strong, practical and aligned across the Single Market. Security frameworks should be risk-based, proportionate and workable in practice, with clear expectations for operators and suppliers, realistic implementation timelines and proper recognition of how network transitions happen in the real world.
Security and resilience are also linked to Europe’s wider debates about sovereignty, dependency, cloud, data and AI. The right approach should strengthen resilience and reduce critical risks, while still allowing investment in modern digital infrastructure to continue.
Our policy priorities:
- Adopt harmonised, risk-based security rules under the Cyber Security Act, with realistic timelines and implementation that reflect equipment lifecycles and operational reality.
- Strengthen resilience without fragmenting the market by using common standards, clearer reporting and assurance requirements, and fewer conflicting national obligations.
- Take a pragmatic approach to sovereignty and dependency so that Europe can reduce critical risks while keeping cloud, data and AI frameworks workable for long-term investment and modernisation.
A sustainable digital economy must be fair for consumers, businesses and the wider ecosystem. The services people use every day increasingly depend on high-capacity networks, digital platforms, cloud-based tools and new forms of connectivity, but responsibilities across the value chain are not always balanced or consistently applied.
Vodafone believes Europe needs a fairer and more accountable digital framework. Consumers should remain protected, but the rules should reflect how digital services are now designed, delivered and consumed. Services that perform similar functions should face comparable responsibilities, and obligations should be proportionate, workable and technology-neutral.
A more balanced framework would support trust, innovation and investment. It would make incentives clearer across the ecosystem, ensure responsibilities are more evenly shared, and allow new services to develop within rules that remain practical, predictable and fair.
Our policy priorities:
- Protect consumers while modernising outdated rules so that safeguards remain strong, but obligations stay proportionate and sustainable as the market evolves.
- Apply the principle of same service, same rules so that comparable digital communications services face consistent and technology-neutral obligations.
- Create a fairer relationship across the digital value chain by establishing clearer and more harmonised interconnection principles, with a credible way to resolve disputes if negotiations stall.
- Modernise network rules so that open internet protections remain strong, while allowing clarity for enterprise services, proportionate traffic management and specialised services.
- Strengthen accountability across digital services by addressing harmful design practices and ensuring responsibilities are clear across the wider ecosystem.
- Keep digital regulation workable for innovation by avoiding rules that create unnecessary uncertainty, duplication or barriers to new services.
- Expand access and coverage by supporting connectivity models, including satellite-enabled services, that can help close gaps and improve availability where terrestrial networks are harder to deploy.
CONNECTIVITY
Why telecoms matters
Next-generation connectivity can play a critical role in improving European competitiveness. Digitisation driven by new 5G technologies is a €1 trillion opportunity to boost innovation, increase industrial efficiency and improve public service.
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15 Jan 2026
Europe’s digital backbone: Why secure connectivity is now a core pillar of defence
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