Prague - Coordination and harmonisation of spectrum policies in the Western Balkans (WB) was discussed at the regional meeting organised by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) that took place in Prague, Chez Republic today.

The meeting gathered representatives WB ministries in charge of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and Regulatory Agencies, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), experts and managers from the European Union (EU) member states, and the RCC.
 
The opening statements were delivered by Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova, RCC's Coordinator of South East Europe 2020 (SEE2020) Strategy, Brahima Sanou, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau and Jaroslaw Ponder, Head of ITU Office for Europe. 
 
Following the plenary session on Committee for ITU policy (COM-ITU)/ European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications (CEPT) the participants discussed key developments in spectrum policies in WB economies.  
  
The RCC informed the participants on the key developments in spectrum policies across WB economies, including the state of play at the regional level. Moreover, the WB6 economies presented their state of play on regulatory and institutional framework on spectrum policy, readiness for 5G network and adoption of new spectrum policy, cross border coordination aspects; and challenges and solutions on regional spectrum policy harmonization from the national and regional perspective. 
 
Having in mind that spectrum policy is a measure stipulated under the Multi-Annual Action Plan on Regional Economic Area (MAP REA), the meeting also facilitated discussions among WB6 on potential regional actions in this regard.
 
This session devoted to coordination of spectrum policies in some of EU Member States provided insight to the WB6 participants into the experiences of some of the EU members in regard to spectrum policy harmonization and enabled an informed discussion among the participants. The presented experiences from EU might be beneficial lessons for WB6 economies as a potential replication base. 
 
Two potential regional actions were proposed during the meeting, namely (1) joint approach on World Radio Conference (WRC) – facilitating through RCC the participation of WB6 Regulators in the WRC meetings and (2) put greater focus on spectrum policy in the next Western Balkan Digital Summit, and work on a regional agreement in spectrum policy for the WB6 – to be further facilitated by RCC.
 
The day earlier RCC’s Maja Handjiska-Trendafilova addressed ITU Regional Development Forum for Europe (RDF-EUR) meeting ‘Information and Communication Technologies for attaining Sustainable Development Goals’,  organized by the ITU at the invitation of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Czech Republic, updating the participants on developments in the Western Balkans area in this field.