Brussels, 04/08/2000 (Agence Europe) -ETNO, the European public telecommunications network operators association, brought it support to the European Commission report on the barriers to entry on the American market (see EUROPE f 31 July, 1 August pages 9 and 10, and of 2 August pages 4 and 5).
In a letter to Commission Pascal Lamy, it expresses its opposition towards the draft legislation presented by the American senator Fritz Hollings, which aims at preventing the acquisition of American companies by foreign companies that are more than 25% owned by the States. Such a measure would block the acquisition by the German company Deutsche Telekom AG of the American VoiceStream Wireless Corp. Michael Bartholomew, the new ETNO Director, underlines in a press release that " in signing the WTO agreement, the United States committed itself to abolish all restrictions on ownership of common carrier radio licences by foreign operators". He added that "the European market is among the most open in the world", and that the large scale investments made by American companies provides ample testimony to this fact".
ETNO gather together 45 companies whose culminated turnover is EUR 160 billion and that employs more than one million people.