Europe’s telecoms regulator has vowed to use EU treaty powers to force through plans to create a single market for mobile services across the region as part of moves to drag the industry from “near-collapse”.

During a closed meeting with ministers and telecoms industry chief executives at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Neelie Kroes, Europe’s digital commissioner, outlined an “action plan” to put the region “at the heart of the mobile industry it established and once dominated”.

She has identified €7 billion of investment needed to create a modern mobile telecoms market. The plan includes improving operators’ access to the spectrum they need for mobile services, as well as €50 million of funding for research to deliver “5G” mobile technology by 2020.