18th EaPeReg Plenary Meeting took place on 3 December, 2021 in Kyiv (in hybrid format) and brought together more than 60 participants from the EaPeReg, BEREC, European Commission, ITU, EMERG, EU4Digital etc.

Plenary meeting consisted of three thematic blocks focused on:

• EaPeReg and its EWG activities in 2021 and key priorities for 2022 and beyond
• EaPeReg cooperation with Partners
• topics important for the Region in the context of regulation of electronic communications (Global telecom tendencies and Cooperation with stakeholders: Sweden experience).

Coming from this, EaPeReg Leadership for 2021 and Chairs of EaPeReg expert working groups: Roaming Expert Working Group (REWG), Independence of Regulators and Braodband Expert Working Group (IRB EWG) and Spectrum Expert Working Group (SEWG), presented reports and the main results and achievements of Network’s and Groups’ activities in 2021 and overview of common working streams and results achieved with the EU4Digital Team. Additionally, the newly launched EaPeReg website was presented.

EaPeReg elected new Leadership for 2022, which was the most important point for the Plenary meeting. The newly elected EaPeReg Chair 2022 is Public Services Regulatory Commission of Republic of Armenia (PSRC) and its Chairman Mr Garegin Baghramyan and EaPeReg Vice-Chair 2022 is the Czech Telecommunication Office (CTU) and its Council Chair Ms Hana Továrková.

Current EaPeReg Leadership: EaPeReg Chair Oleksandr Zhyvotovskyi (Chair of NCCIR, Ukraine) and EaPeReg Vice-Chair Dan Sjöblom (Director General of PTS, Sweden) continue leading the EaPeReg by 01 January 2022.

EaPeReg considered and preliminarily approved the Work Plan for 2022 and discussed EaPeReg proposals to the JSWD “Recovery, resilience and reform: post 2020 Eastern Partnership priorities”.

During the second thematic block focused on the EaPeReg cooperation with Partners, there were four special sessions: EaPeReg – BEREC cooperation in 2021-2022, Importance of Regional Cooperation and NRAs’ engagement, EaPeReg-ITU cooperation in 2021-2022, EaPeReg – EMERG cooperation in 2021-2022.

BEREC Leadership: Michel Van Bellinghen, BEREC Chair 2021; Dan Sjöblom, BEREC Vice-Chair 2021; Annemarie Sipkes, BEREC Chair 2022 and László Ignéczi, Director of the BEREC Office; Secretary General of Independent Regulators Group (IRG) Delphine Bernet-Travert, Head of the ITU Office for Europe Jaroslaw Ponder and EMERG Chair 2021 Joao Cadete de Matos participated and intervened for these sessions. Priority topics for common work and necessity of deepening the existing cooperation were discussed, including on the EWGs level, was emphasised. It the importance of the role of the NRA for the regions and regional initiatives was also emphasized.

Plenary was also a place for formal signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between EaPeReg and EMERG. MoU was signed Oleksandr Zhyvotovskyi, EaPeReg Chair 2021 (Chair of NCCIR, Ukraine) and João Cadete de Matos, EMERG Chair 2021 (ANACOM President, Portugal).

This is the third MoU for the EaPeReg, similar ones were concluded with BEREC and ITU.

In the final part of the meeting, two important topics were discussed: Global telecom tendencies, presented by Tomas Lamanauskas, Lithuanian Candidate for Deputy Secretary General of the ITU, and Cooperation with stakeholders: Sweden experience, presented by Ola Bergstrom, Director for International Affairs, PTS (Sweden).