Italy: L’enfant terrible of the European spectrum allocation

For all of its advantages, digital switchover in Croatia brought new problems. The most severe one is the inability of over 60,000 households in the coastal area of the Adriatic Sea to watch Croatian television broadcaster’s programmes. The reason for this situation is harmful interference caused by Italian television transmitters, which operate on frequencies assigned to Croatia. By doing so Italy directly violates international agreements regarding radio-frequency spectrum allocation and causes direct damage to Croatia and its citizens. However, Croatia is not the only country affected by this problem – Italian hunger for radio-frequency spectrum affects fifteen other countries as well. After too many promises, in 2014 Italy made the first concrete steps towards resolution of this issue. However, due to a long history of broken promises, the latest announcement of elimination of interference by the end of April 2015 is viewed with suspicion.