Brussels, 13/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of the second reading of the EU Electronic Communications Package by the European Parliament (EP), the European Cable Communications Association (ECCA) that lobbies for the interests of the cable industry at EU level, has published a position paper with a view to meeting up with various MEPs such as Astrid Thors (ELDR, Finland), Colette Flesch (ELDR, Luxembourg) and Malcolm Harbour (EPP-ED, United Kingdom). This meeting was scheduled to take place on Wednesday, but had to be postponed under the pressure of current events, and will take place in the next few days. ECCA will be represented by its President, Marc Mesle, at the meeting.
The ECCA welcomes the European Parliament's endorsement of the consultation and transparency mechanism recommended by the Commission, stressing that it is crucial to have a true single market and that one of the options provided by the Electronic Communications Package published in July 2000 is the opportunity, under Article 6 of the Framework Directive, for the Commission to act against any National Regulatory Authority decision that violates EU law.
The ECCA is concerned, however, at certain mandatory standards. In the EP's first reading of the draft Framework and Universal Services Directives, MEPs called for "the mandation of the Multimedia Home Platform (MHP) standard for digital decoders". A separate set of amendments to the draft Access and Universal Service Directives calls for the voluntary introduction of an interface for conditional access systems. The ECCA is calling for the voluntary introduction of MHP based services and opposes the compulsory adoption of MHP or a common interface, arguing that "the obligation to include a standardised API (i.e. based on MHP) and a common interface in the set-top box would have serious consequences for the further roll out of digital TV in Europe". The main point of cable is to provide high speed multimedia and interactive services.
The ECCA argues that requiring cable operators to carry particular channels or services is a serious restriction of the free movement of services and limits operators' discretion to transmit the programmes of their choice, thereby distorting competition in the market and resulting in an inefficient allocation of cable capacity. For these reasons, the ECCA believes that Article 26 of the Universal Service Directive should ensure that the "must carry" obligations should "be proportionate and limited to clearly defined public interest objectives, and that network operators should receive fair and reasonable compensation for "must carry" channels to reflect the opportunity cost of carrying these channels rather than other new services or channels".