France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to develop a law that would ensure that big tech companies part-fund telecommunications infrastructure in the EU, Reuters reported with reference to the relevant document.

In May, EU regulators said they were considering whether tech giants Alphabet Google, Meta and Netflix should take on some of the cost of telecom network upgrades.

In a joint paper, the three governments said the top six content providers account for 55% of internet traffic. This creates a cost for European telecom operators in terms of bandwidth, while they are already investing heavily in the most expensive parts of networks with 5G and fiber, the document says.

Countries are calling on European telecommunications networks and major online content providers to pay their fair share of network costs.