Brussels, 14/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - Speaking to national regulatory authorities last week in Paris, Commissioner Viviane Reding restated that she wanted to create an open and competitive single market in information technologies and the media, and talked of the key role of the European Regulators Group (ERG) in this. In applying the regulatory framework on electronic communications, European regulators had to adopt the consistent attitude that was missing before the ERG was set up in 2002, “I won't hide from you the fact that the markets are telling us that Europe does not yet have a satisfactory level of consistency and harmonisation of practices between national regulators”. Mrs Reding said that, within the context of the review of the regulatory framework, it was not necessary to increase the Commission's powers to intervene but rather what was needed was for there to be a change in attitude from national authorities who had to start thinking beyond their national boundaries. Speaking of the review of the regulatory framework, Mrs Reding said that the Commission would ensure that the following questions were answered: - How can we best achieve competition and investment in next generation networks? (The Commission cannot tolerate any fragmented national approach favouring only former operators and blocking the development of newcomers to the scene.); - How to ensure a balanced regulatory approach, regulating only where necessary to remove market distortions?; - How can we make the market review procedure of the regulation more streamlined, more efficient and less resource intensive for regulators?; - How can we make spectrum rules more coherent across the EU, more innovation-friendly, market oriented and user friendly? The Commissioner believes that “success will come when markets have become sustainably competitive so that we can dismantle step by step the ex ante regulation that controls the market power of dominant companies”.