Council moves towards a new framework for electronic communications services
The Council of the European Union has invited the Commission to adopt new legislative proposals for electronic communications services, following the presentation of the Commission's review of the current telecommunications legislation. The fifth report on the implementation of the telecommunications package entitled 'Communications review: Towards a new Framework for Electronic Communications Services' (see RCN 13914) was presented to the Council by Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information Society, Erkki Liikanen. The report concluded that the regulatory framework has benefited the telecommunications markets in Member States, and noted several elements that could be included in the forthcoming revised regulatory package to further reduce the barriers to achieving a single European market. The Council advised that the revised framework should simplify the current framework and take increasing consideration of competition law. Furthermore, regulation should be based on clearly defined policy objectives, and should be reduced to the minimum necessary. The Commission was asked to take these considerations into account, and present the results of a public consultation on electronic communications services to the Council in time for discussion prior to the next Telecommunications Council. Following the outcome of these discussions, new legislative proposals should be prepared before summer 2000.