Brussels, 28/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 29 June, the European Commission will present its communication on revision of the regulatory framework on electronic communications but, as already announced by the Commissioner in charge of telecom policy, Viviane Reding, it will follow the road of liberalisation of the telecommunications sector and open it up more to competition, to the great disappointment of the traditional operators (Germany has been warned about Deutsche Telekom, see EUROPE 9212). Traditional operators hoped that the Commission would allow them not to open the new infrastructures in which they have been investing (optical fibre) to competition. “It is my firm belief that 'regulatory holidays' are not a policy option for Review 2006 (…). We cannot go into the future in reverse gear”, Ms Reding said during a conference in Brussels on 27 June. In addition to the simplification of procedures, the Commission plans to reduce the number of markets currently subject to “ex-ante” rules from 18 to 12, thanks to the effective liberalisation of several of them (mainly fixed and mobile telephony) and to create an independent regulator of the telecommunications sector that will oversee application of the European regulations by national agencies. It hopes, on the other hand, to extend liberalisation to frequencies in order to rationalise the use of the spectrum, and, in order to achieve this, foresees bringing in exchange of frequencies between operators at European level for certain portions of the spectrum, and to create a European agency responsible for managing the system in order to simplify the process, currently managed by 25 national authorities. The Commission, moreover, is studying how appropriate it is to separate the activities of services to individuals from network activities of telecom operators in order to strengthen competition especially for broad band, after the practice used in the United States. The Commission will pursue four fundamental objectives during its review, which will result in a formal legal proposal at the end of the year: consolidation of the internal market, the strengthening of user and consumers' interests, improved network security and the elimination of obsolete provisions.