European Communications Office – ECO

European Communications Office – ECO provides advice and support to CEPT to help it to develop and deliver its policies and decisions in an effective and transparent way.

The ECO is located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the permanent office supporting the CEPT, its Presidency and its three Committees: the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC), the Committee for ITU Policy (Com-ITU) and the Committee for Postal Regulation(CERP). CEPT brings together the postal and telecommunications regulatory authorities of 48 European countries.

The ECO Annual Reports can be downloaded here.This gives a comprehensive contemporary overview of our actual activities and achievement.

You can read a little more about what our staff does here.

The Office is governed by the ECO Council, consisting of representatives of the Contracting Parties to the ECO Convention, which is the instrument establishing the ECO and defining its constitution and purpose.
The current Chair of Council is Mrs Marta Leandro (POR). For more details about the ECO Council, see Council page.

Currently, ECO has 12 staff members, drawn from different CEPT countries. The Director is Per Christensen (DNK) and the Deputy Director Freddie McBride (IRL).

The European Communications Office Convention expresses the primary functions of the ECO, often referred to as ‘The Office’, as follows:

to provide a centre of expertise which shall act as a focal point, identifying problem areas and new possibilities in the postal and electronic communications field and to advise the CEPT Presidency and the Committees accordingly;
to draft long-term plans for future use of scarce resources utilised by electronic communications on a European level;
to liaise with the national authorities, as appropriate;
to support and work together with national frequency management authorities;
to conduct consultations on specific topics or parts of the frequency spectrum;
to publish CEPT deliverables (Decisions and Recommendations) and keep a record of their implementation;
to be the custodian of the CEPT archives and to disseminate CEPT information as appropriate
European Communications Office – Some history:

In 1991, a ”Host Agreement” was signed with the Danish Government, and the European Radiocommunications Office, ERO, was established on the basis of an MoU with 19 signatories
In June 1993, the ERO Convention was agreed by the parties to the MoU
In January 1994, the European Telecommunications Office, ETO, was established on the basis of an MoU
In March 1996, the ERO Convention entered into force
On 1 January 2001 the ERO and the ETO merged
On 1 July 2009, the merger was formally recognised by a change of name to ECO, European Communications Office
On 8 May 2012 Latvia joined, and on 21 November 2013 Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the ECO Convention.
On 1 March 2013 the ECO Convention of 9th April 2002 entered into force
On 3 December 2014 Czech Republic joined the ECO Convention.
On 1 February 2015 Lithuania joined the ECO Convention.
On 21 November 2018 Malta joined, bringing to 36 the number of countries contributing to the financing of ECO.

https://www.cept.org/eco/