“European Commission doubted the viability of Tele2.

Yesterday, the European Commission took a somewhat remarkable decision. It approved the planned merger of T-Mobile and Tele2. As a result, there will soon be only three network providers in the Netherlands with their own mobile networks. It seems that the European Commission gave its approval because it doubted the viability and competitiveness of Tele2 in the Netherlands.

The Financieele Dagblad reports this today on the basis of a senior official of the European Commission who is familiar with the matter. According to the official, the Commission had doubts about the competitiveness of Tele2. The company was not able to compete well with its competitors, which reduced its viability.

No new policy

This very viability was one of the arguments put forward by Tele2 itself to allow the takeover to take place. One of Tele2’s top executives even stated that there was little chance that his company would continue to exist in the Netherlands. In recent years, it has had to spend many tens of millions of euros on the Dutch division.

The senior official states that this was the reason why the European Commission approved the takeover. The European Commission still prefers to see at least four operators with their own networks. This ensures a good balance of competition and that consumers have plenty of choice, can often enjoy a good offer and that the quality of networks is good.

For the time being, little will change as a result of the merger. For the time being, Tele2 will continue to exist as a brand and the subscriptions taken out with Tele2 will continue to exist under the same conditions. The idea is, however, to use the combined power to roll out 5G networks more quickly, for example. However, such plans will only be realised after the merger has been completed, probably in the first half of 2019.