EU TO TAKE ACTION AGAINST LAGGARD MEMBERS ON INFRINGEMENT
The European Commission (EC) said Fri. it would begin infringement proceedings against member states that had not implemented the new regulatory framework for electronic communications by the July 25 deadline. The framework covers all forms of electronic communications, such as telephony and Internet. “The Commission is determined to take action to ensure the full implementation of the new framework, and will start proceedings in the next few weeks against those member states that have not yet transported the regulations,” said Erkki Liikanen, EU information society commissioner: “We will ensure that the new framework is implemented quickly.”
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The new regulatory package designed to boost competition in the electronic communications sector was adopted by the European Union (EU) Parliament and Council in March 2002, and was scheduled to be transported into national law by July 24 and applied by the member states from July 25. The Commission said implementation of the new rules would provide “the legal predictability and regulatory flexibility necessary for continued investment in the sector,” and would complement the e-Europe objective of achieving competitive local access for Internet services over broadband networks “as cheaply as possible on a sustainable basis.”
The Commission said Fri. it was a “priority” to push for complete transposition of the new framework. Per Haugaard, a spokesman for Comr. Liikanen, said the Commission would take the laggards such as Germany and France to the European Court of Justice “in the next few weeks… If the court rules so, they will be ordered to bring their legislation in compliance” with the law. He said fines, which would “depend on gravity of violation,” were a “legal possibility,” but would be the last and “unlikely” resort. “In 99.9% of cases, member states do comply” with the court order, Haugaard said.
The Commission said it had been working with the member states’ authorities through its Communications Committee and in bilateral meetings “to smooth the passage of the new framework” and had “put in place the resources necessary to ensure enforcement of the new rules.” It said Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and the U.K. had “taken the necessary action to transpose the package into national law,” and some other states, particularly Italy, were “close behind.”
As part of the new framework, the Commission pushed for rapid deployment of local enhanced 112 emergency services. It said Fri. it had adopted a recommendation that proposed guidelines for setting up systems providing automatic transfer of location information to emergency centers for both fixed and mobile callers. The proposed harmonized approach is aimed at “minimizing the overall cost of implementation to all parties through increased co-operation and the development of common solutions,” the EC said.
The Commission required member states to ensure interconnectivity and interoperability between their networks handling the emergency calls within the EU, which it said was especially important in border areas where mobile networks didn’t match territorial frontiers and emergency calls could be picked up by networks on the other side of the border. It estimated the share of emergency calls begun on mobile networks had reached 50% in the EU and was rising. EU-wide, it said, there were more than 1 million emergency callers each year who were unable to indicate their location. The Commission said the systems would be implemented “progressively as available caller location technologies become more sophisticated.” It said it would review the progress made at the end of 2004 to identify whether further actions at the EU level would be needed.
The Commission also said it had removed obligations on certain telecom operators to lease their lines to small and medium-size companies. Since 1993, member states had been required to ensure that a minimum set of leased lines were available throughout their territory from at least one network operator. However, the Commission said Fri. that liberalization of the telecom market had provided a competitive supply of leased lines in many markets and particularly on high density long distance routes, so “the need for mandating provision of [such] services nationwide is decreasing.”