Brussels, 28/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 28 January 2010, the European Commission issued infringement proceedings against three Member States, France, Bulgaria and Italy, for failure to respect EU telecoms rules.
France. The Commission has lodged infringement proceedings against France by sending it a warning letter about the French 'telecoms tax' on telecommunications operators. To offset the end of advertising on public TV channels, France has introduced a specific tax on the turnover of telecommunications operators in connection with their licence to provide telecoms services (including Internet and mobile phone services). However, the Commission takes the view that in reality this tax constitutes an administrative charge that is incompatible with European law and unfairly punishes an industry that is one of the main drivers of economic growth. The Commission fears that operators will pass the tax on to consumers. Viviane Reding commented that the Commission is trying to reduce costs for consumers.
Bulgaria. Bulgaria has been sent a warning letter requiring it to make sure the technical requirements are in place for hearing aids, social alarms and emergency buttons at home, for old and disabled people. Bulgaria has not followed EU rules whereby the 169 MHz frequency should be made available to applications of social value and electronic services such as asset tracking and paging systems.
Italy. The Commission has launched infringement proceedings against Italy for not respecting EU ePrivacy rules. Under EU law, subscribers who are included in a public subscriber directory must be informed about the objectives of the directory and consent to the use of their personal data contained therein for marketing purposes. As Italy failed to comply with this obligation, the Commission decided to send a letter of formal notice. The Commission has abandoned a different case against Italy following confirmation that calls made to the single European emergency number 112 can be effectively transferred to the relevant national emergency service. On 15 January 2009, the European Court of Justice ruled that Italy had not introduced such a transfer mechanism for calls to 112 despite repeated requests to this effect from the European Commission. The Commission therefore sent a letter of formal notice to Italy in November 2009 about the effectiveness of 112 calls handling. Italy has now complied with the rules. (I.L. trans fl)