Brussels, 22/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - On 26 February, the fifth "European Competition Day" will be held in Madrid. Commissioner Monti will be there. The liberalisation of telecommunications sector and the rights for broadcasting sports events will be the two main themes. Entirely liberalised in 1998, the telecommunications sector nonetheless suffers from discrimination at local loop level, to which rival operators still do not have shared access in some Member States, despite a Regulation 2000 which makes unbundling compulsory. Competition policy currently focuses on this problem, which will be discussed in Madrid. Regarding the sale of broadcasting rights for football matches and other sports events (rights that are one of the main sources of revenue for sports associations and which are of vital importance for television channels, mainly pay-TV), the Commission fears that the exclusive sale of such rights to any one channel for a long period of time would cause discrimination and would penalise consumers, especially if such rights were acquired by a pay channel (see, for the letter of objection against UEFA, EUROPE of 21 July, p.12).