International legal aspects of internet regulation in the European Union

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to provide a list and briefly analyze international legal mechanisms, as well as legal sources and acts of the EU aimed at regulating the use of the Internet and electronic communication technologies within the organization; identify areas, status and directions of internal and external harmonization of the described regulatory mechanisms. Scientific novelty of the work is to consider the mechanisms and basic regulations of the European Union in the process of their creation and in terms of their role in the formation of a single digital space of the organization. Specific works of domestic scientists in the relevant field were generalized and supplemented, as well as the basis for further research was established. In the early 2000s, EU lawmakers focused on the develop-ment of basic regulations in the field of telecommunications, digital networks and Internet services. As a result, a number of Directives and decisions have been adopted since 2002; at the same time, the development of regulatory mechanisms that would operate within the digital space of the EU actively lasts since 2009. This new stage in the process of developing harmonized mechanisms for regulating electronic communications services and the Internet culminated in the adoption in 2009 of a number of legal documents, including Regulation (EU) 1211/2009, which established the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (hereinafter – BEREC), which took over the role of the national regulatory authority (hereinafter – NRA). In 2018, as part of the creation of a single digital space in the EU, an updated BEREC Regulation was adopted, as well as the Electronic Communications Code (hereinafter – the Code).Now the field of electronic communications and the Internet is undergoing numerous stages of development and reform. The research identified the main directions of EU policies, which include measures to harmonize and unify legislation for more effective interaction within both the EU and external partners: cybersecurity, copyright and personal data, and telecommunications services. These areas, since 2013, have been the focus of efforts, given the complexity of regulation and a rapid development of technologies. In the article, the author covers come theoretical and practical aspects of the European Commission’s activities on Internet regulation and describes the creation of the EU single digital space in terms of the process as a whole.Thus, the result of the study was a descriptive analysis of the process of formation of the EU’s legal framework, roles of organizations and institutions and the status of electronic communications and the Internet regulatory mechanisms.