Strasbourg, 11/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The president-in-office of the Telecom Council, Rik Daems, had made a promise last week. He said he would do everything possible to reduce the divergence between Council and Parliament on the telecommunications package before the end of the Belgian Presidency (see EUROPE of 7 December, p.9). And he has kept his promise. Over the last few days, he has carried out a series of negotiations with the Commission and a delegation of the EP, negotiations that resulted on Monday evening in a positive reaction from some of the discussion partners. It remains to be seen whether the Presidency's compromise will get though the plenary on Wednesday. The compromise covers four major differences between the Council and the EP: 1) Right of appeal: the compromise package takes the Parliament's line by requiring Member States to "ensure that the merits of the case are duly taken into account". 2) Transparency mechanism: The text gives the Commission "hard" powers to require NRAs (National Regulation Authorities) to withdraw draft measures in the key areas linked to the functioning of the single market (definition of markets and designation of "undertakings with significant market power", etc.); Radio spectrum: the Belgian Presidency proposes greater Commission involvement on spectrum matters, but the Parliament had requested to be consulted on this point, which does not provide for compromise; 4) Interoperability: the compromise imposes an obligation on Member States to encourage the use of open application program interfaces (APIs) by platform operators and equipment manufacturers. In addition, Member Sates would also be required to encourage API owners to make available, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, all such information as is necessary to enable service providers to provide all services supported by the API.