Luxembourg, 28/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - At the end of a "long but interesting day", as Commissioner Erkii Liikanen described it, the Telecom Council reached agreement, on Wednesday, on all points except for the question of unsolicited e-mails, Council President Björn Rosengren told the press at the end of work. As pointed out in yesterday's EUROPE, p.7, the Council managed to reach an agreement on universal service, the creation of the name of the domain, .eu, and the coordination and the use of radio frequencies. We give below an overview of the results of this Council:
Radio spectrum: Commissioner Erkki Liikanen welcomed the adoption of a decision that "makes it possible to create a legal framework" for cooperation between Member States on the use of radio frequencies. Harmonisation decisions will be taken according to conciliation procedure, an aim "we did not achieve in 1993", he stressed.
Universal service: See following article.
Data protection: The Council did not reach an agreement on the directive intended to balance the management of data transmitted electronically and the protection of privacy, and referred the issue to the October session. Despite a full day of discussion, the Council did not reach consensus on the question of unsolicited e-mails, and the Commission was opposed to a compromise that provided for a system of prior agreement from e-mail advertising addresses ("opt in" system), together with a four-year transition period for States that so wish (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.7). "A majority in Council were in favour of the Presidency's proposal on "opt in", but we considered it appropriate not to adopt it pending the first reading in Parliament, said the Council President. France, followed by Ireland, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg are urging for an "opt out" system as they "hope to protect the consumers while receiving assurance that the EU and its electronic commerce will not be disadvantaged compared to third countries", said French Minister Christian Pierret. Neither was an agreement reached on exceptions allowing data diffused by the Internet to be conserved, departing from the general principle of personal data protection and the elimination of data.
.eu domain name: Pending the position that the Parliament is expected to adopt next week, the Council defined a common guideline on the regulation that will allow the creation of a domain name, .eu. "I trust that the text will be definitively adopted this year, in order to create the first .eu domains next year (…) at the same time as changeover to the euro", said Mr Liikanen. In concrete terms, the regulation provides for the Commission to conclude a contract with the registering body, which, in turn, will sign an agreement with ICANN, the US organisation responsible for the registration of names and numbers governing Internet domains. The last points to be resolved mainly covered the means of preventing abuse: 1) control of content: The Council agreement provides for a posteriori and not ex-ante controls, as several Member States wished, fearing a rise in the number of disputes on intellectual property issues in particular; 2) geographic appellations: the Member States should provide lists of appellations that they wish to protect; 3) the use of names of institutions already established: the Commission will ensure abuse is avoided, said Mr Liikanen.
UMTS: Mr Liikanen took stock of the follow-up the Communication dated 20 March that alerted the Member States to the delays in introducing the third generation of communications systems. The Member States took stock of the process for allocating licenses for third generation mobile telephony, through auction or direct allocation. The Presidency summarised debates insisting on the need to pursue dialogue between Member States and with industry, because of the different systems for allocating licenses. "The Council unanimously stressed the importance of guaranteeing that the third generation would be successful to allow the development of new services for businesses and consumers", said Björn Rosengren.
Postal service: Ministers noted that there was no progress on the proposal of directive providing for liberalisation of postal services.
Information and network security: During lunch, the Commission presented its communication of 6 June on this element of the "eEurope" action plan for the development of the information society in Europe.