European Union: Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications opened consultation on draft guidelines on coordination of civil works according to Article 5(6) of the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA)

On 10 June 2025, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) opened a public consultation on the draft BEREC Guidelines on the coordination of civil works under Article 5(6) of the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA), with submissions accepted until 11 July 2025. The draft Guidelines were developed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2024/1309, which mandates BEREC to issue guidance before 12 November 2025, and incorporate input from national regulatory authorities and stakeholders consulted in 2024. The guidelines are intended to support the roll-out of very high capacity networks (VHCNs) by facilitating the joint use of existing physical infrastructure and improving the coordination of new deployments. The guidelines explain methodologies for sharing the costs of coordinated civil works, outline criteria to guide dispute settlement bodies in resolving coordination-related conflicts, and specify obligations for ensuring sufficient physical infrastructure capacity when coordination is refused. They also support implementation of the GIA’s one-month dispute resolution timeframe and include an optional model agreement to aid national-level application. Finally, the guidelines includes a voluntary standard agreement model to support consistent national implementation.