E.U.: Tension grows between E.U./U.K. over massive new broadband project

Tension between the E.U. and U.K. rose to a new level this week as Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Competition Policy Juaquin Almunia said that E.U. bureaucracy is not at fault for a delay in implementing the Broadband Delivery UK timetable, a new broadband strategy whose framework was approved earlier this month by European officials. The U.K. had proposed the broadband strategy as a massive effort to put faster broadband in more homes across the United Kingdom. Almunia said that the U.K. cannot blame E.U. bureaucrats for a slow implementation of the plan, adding that the European Commission had requested the necessary information from the U.K. to put the plan in place last April, but it wasn’t until last month that the information was supplied. Tensions over the project had risen between the E.U. and the U.K. after the U.K.’s Culture secretary Maria Miller met with regulators earlier this month to question the slow implementation of the project to the “final third” of its outreach. The broadband strategy raised competition concerns due to the fact it allowed for only two telecom firms to bid for contracts.