The co-legislators are very close to agreeing on the new electronic telecommunication rules. At their meeting on Tuesday 5 June, they may announce as a ‘finale,’ introducing a cap for international intra-EU calls. The negotiating mandate of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, endorsed on 30 May, seems to consider this for the first time.
The draft directive unveiled in 2016 gives itself the objective of introducing greater predictability and legal certainty in order to encourage investment and the deployment of infrastructure. In 283 pages, it rehashes the 2002 framework-directive, the 'authorisation' directive, the 'access' directive and the 'universal service' directive (see EUROPE 11624).
The co-legislators (Parliament and Council) have met seven times thus far. During their meetings, they have managed to temporarily settle the ‘spectrum’ section, which notably covers the question of the duration of licences (see EUROPE 11973), and the ‘access’ section, which notably covers situations where an operator is obliged to give access to its network (see EUROPE 12025). But they still have a lot of other issues to conclude.
International intra-EU calls
At this stage, the main stumbling block of the reform is the price of international intra-EU calls, which the European Parliament wants to cap (Amendment 92a). We understand that the member states’ ambassadors decided at their meeting of 30 May to hold out a hand to the European Parliament and accept a cap on the price of international intra-EU calls, based on the euro-tariff set in Regulation 531/2012, in other words a tariff of €0.19 a minute. They are reported, however, to be refusing to budge over the price of messages. If Parliament accepts the outstretched hand, the co-legislators would still need to agree on the type of services covered (calls and/or texts), the type of beneficiary (consumers and/or companies), monitoring (national or European watchdog) and the date of application.
They will also need to settle other open questions, namely universal services, the level of harmonisation for end-user rights, the universal reverse-112 (raising the alarm in the event of danger), network security and the timeline for implementation.
Regulatory body
At their interinstitutional meeting (that starts at 2 pm), the co-legislators are expected to conclude the legislative proposal on the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BOREC), which was negotiated in parallel. This proposal has now been reduced to simple technical adjustments since both Parliament and the Council have refused to merge the BOREC office (in Riga) with the Council of Regulators (the essential body, which produces guidelines). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)