Brussels, 01/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 29 May, the Latvian Presidency announced that it had received a mandate for finalising the trialogue negotiations with the European Parliament on the “telecoms” package.
It should be pointed out that there were only two elements pending in the discussions on this proposal: setting a date for putting an end to roaming costs and reaching an agreement on the principles underpinning “net neutrality”.
At the third and final discussion session, the Latvian Presidency reintroduced the obligation of, “processing all traffic equally” in an effort to reach a compromise with the EP on the very particular point of respecting net neutrality and upon which the Council demonstrated a less strict position. The final version of the compromise text on the table stipulates that specialised services can only be authorised if basic user connections on the network are not affected by these services. In the field of roaming, the Latvian Presidency is proposing to abolish tariffs on 15 June 2017 instead of 15 December 2015, as proposed by the EP. Member states have been very reluctant to set a date in a close time frame and did not want to see an end to fees before 2018. (Isabelle Lamberty)