Brussels, 05/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 5 December, the Lithuanian minister for transport and communications, Rimantas Sinkevicius, presented ministers responsible for communications, with the Presidency's progress report on the measures proposed by the European Commission for facilitating investment in the ultrafast Internet networks by reducing costs.
An initial report on how the work was progressing was presented in June. The Lithuanian minister emphasised that “the Council has supported the proposal on several occasions and the European Council in October called for a swift adoption of the texts on this dossier”. At this stage, there are a few details that still need to be examined “but in general, we all agree with the aims in this proposal,” he added. The question that still remains is how to resolve the legal status of the proposal: the Commission is proposing a regulation but the Council would prefer a directive. On 28 November, the ITRE committee at the European Parliament granted a mandate to the rapporteur to begin inter-institutional negotiations. Sinkevicius said that he was “sure that the Greek Presidency would make rapid progress in this dossier”. Commissioner Neelie Kroes, in charge of the digital agenda, pointed out that the Commission had carefully studied the matter before proposing a regulation. According to the commissioner, this is the appropriate instrument because it has limited scope and will enable direct and swift application of the provisions in the network set-up phase. It may be recalled that the draft regulation seeks to introduce ultrafast broadband by 2020 by reducing the civil engineering costs and by maximising the synergies between electronic communications and other distribution networks. (IL/transl.fl)