Brussels, 12/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - In a letter sent last week to Francis Mer, the French Finance Minister, and Nicole Fontaine, French Minister for Industry, Commissioners Monti (Competition) and Liikanen (Telecommunications) expressed their concern at plans to reduce the control of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) on France Télécom's tariffs. On Thursday, French MPs adopted an amendment to reduce controls on the former monopoly's prices, previously subject to the TRA's scrutiny before they can be applied. "On 7 January, Mr Liikanen and Mr Monti sent a letter reminding France of its obligations under the universal service directive" confirmed Tilman Lueder, Mario Monti's spokesperson. The Commissioner pointed out that the national competent authorities aim to regulate markets judged to contain too little competition. Although they are not opposed to a posteriori controls on these tariffs, Messrs Liikanen and Monti are much less sympathetic to the idea of downgrading this examination. They stress the fact that supervision measures for retail prices remain needed with a view to making sure that a dominant company does not practise excessive or predatory prices, that it does not accord privileges to certain users in an abusive fashion, and that it does not group its services unreasonably.
Under the "universal services" directive, which was adopted in March 2003, each Member State must identify the operators holding a significant share of its national market. Article 17 of this directive obliges them to adopt into their legislation the necessary provisions to submit the activities of these operators to the control of the competent national authorities. The European Commission has opened infringement proceedings against six Member States, including France, for failing to transpose this directive into their national law by the deadline of 25 July last. According to AFP, the French government answered the Commission's concerns on Saturday, but has expressed surprise at the timing chosen by the European Executive to get worried about it: "the French government's plans were drawn up after a long period of public consultation and gave rise to several meetings between our respective services. At this point, the European Commission mad no comment on their content", it points out. France has also undertaken to transpose the directive "faithfully and transparently", and indicates that it has set in train the process by adopting, on 31 December, a bill to this end.