Europe's top technology regulator Neelie Kroes has called for more consolidation as a way of creating strong cross-border telecom leaders.

Kroes thinks that there is not enough investment in mobile and broadband networks. She maintains that if a few companies join up, they can close the gap with the United States and Asia.

Kroes said a long-awaited proposal on how the EU should encourage investment in ultra-high speed fiber broadband networks will be released in the coming weeks. But she said that fibre deployments have been too slow in Europe as telecom operators have been weakened by weak consumer demand, sinking revenue and tougher competition.

She said that Europe needed to get back to the driver's seat of the digital society, like we were a decade ago with 3G. Kroes added that having a few pan-European operators that are strong in the cross-border market would not necessarily be bad for competition.