Brussels, 06/11/2007 (Agence Europe) - European Commission proposals on the new “telecoms package”, which is expected to be adopted next week, continue to provoke reactions from stakeholders. The Commission is not concealing the fact that the reforms it is proposing include: the separation of networks, the creation of a European telecoms agency, together with a strengthening in the role of the national regulators, the gradual elimination of ex-ante regulation and a reduction in the number of relevant markets (particularly the retail market) and the liberalisation of access to telecommunications frequencies. European Commissioner Viviane Reding, in charge of the information society and telecommunications, unveiled these proposals in a speech made in Athens on 12 October (EUROPE 9522).
The creation of a European telecoms agency provoked a negative reaction in some member states last week, particularly from Ofcom, the British regulatory authority. According to its director, Ed Richards, such an agency would be useless, would hamper the ERG's work (the European Regulators Group) and would endanger the progress already achieved: “The Commission favours a significant increase in its own powers to determine national regulatory remedies, supported by a new EU-funded super-regulator…a centralisation of power to Brussels, plus a new European bureaucracy is not the answer”, he declared. The Commission reacted sharply to these affirmations through the voice of Martin Selmayr, Commissioner Reding's spokesman, who explained that this new authority would not replace the national authorities. Selmayer said that the goal was to ensure the independence of the latter in relation to the political authorities and telecommunications operators. As for the question of the duplication of jobs, Selmayr rejected this categorically and stated that the ERG was currently inefficient and in no way able to “create a single market for telecommunications operators and consumers” adding, “not all the dossiers…have received a clear answer from the European Regulators Group”. The spokesman focused on pending problems involving access to new generation networks, mobile terminal tariffs and Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP). The Commission is in no way questioning the role of Ofcom or other national regulators. It is simply saying that a single agency will be more efficient than bringing 27 people together round a table, who will never reach an agreement on anything ambitious unless introducing qualified majority voting, emphasised Mr Selmayr. (I.L.)