Brussels, 01/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the Commission took note of the decision of the French firm Bouygues Telecom to withdraw from the call for tenders launched by the French authorities. It has not decided on what to do about the complaint that Bouygue lodged against this procedure. Per Haugaard, spokesman for Commissioner Liikanen, responsible for telecommunications, declared that the Commission would like to insist, in this delicate phase of implementing the 3rd generation of mobile telecommunications, on the objectives and rules that have been agreed at Community level, that is to say, transparency, non-discrimination, equality in the conditions of competition between the different candidates; to seek a sufficient number of candidates to build a dynamic framework; timely clarification of the regulatory conditions applying in France in this sector.
Following the withdrawal of the Suez-Telefonica consortium and Bouygues, the procedure launched in France is left with two candidates - France Telecom and Vivendi-SFR - for four licences, one of which for 15 years, at a cost of 5 billion euro.