Brussels, 28/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - Friday's Telecommunications Council examined the future regulatory framework of electronic communications, a series of proposals intended to adjust the legislation to developments in the sector. The Council confirmed the broad agreement reached within the Committee of Permanent Representatives on the draft framework directive, pending the opinion of the European Parliament. On the other hand, no political agreement was found on the part of the directive that organises relations between the national regulatory authorities and the Commission (Articles 13 and 14), mainly on the latter's power of control. The Council invited the Commission to present a proposal of guidelines. According to Per Haugaard, spokesman for Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, responsible for telecommunications, "the current Council text does not provide the possibility to conduct a coherent policy".
For the rest of the regulatory package (see EUROPE of 22 December, page 7), the Presidency's conclusions point out that "the Council has noted the state of progress of work". The Council adopted the multiannual eContent programme (see EUROPE of 23 December, page 7), running for four years with a budget of 100 million. It aims to encourage the European digital content on the Internet. Commissioner Erkki Liikanen welcomed this decision, declaring that "in order to exploit the strong European position in mobile telephony, mobile internet access and digital TV, content is key for a new range of services to emerge. European firms are best positioned to tailor culturally and linguistically diversified services to the users' needs". The Commission recalls in a press release that the aim of the programme is not only "access and use of public sector information as well as expansion of the information supply, linguistic and cultural adaptation of information products and removal of market barriers".
The Council noted the Commission's proposal on the creation of a name for a top level domain name ".eu". In its conclusions, it reaffirms the importance of this issue and considers that ".eu" will contribute to promoting the European identity on the Internet network and will give European operators a more prominent place on the Internet. He charged Coreper with presenting a draft for this action as soon as possible. The Council was also informed of follow up action to the e-Europe action plan and noted the intentions of the future Swedish Presidency concerning actions that it plans to take in this field.