Parliament sets out means of regulating Europe's electronic communications
The European Parliament has largely welcomed three reports presented by different MEPs on access to and interconnection, regulation and authorisation of electronic communications network and services in Europe. The issue of access to efficient and reasonably priced electronic communications forms a central issue in the European Commission's eEurope policy, aiming to establish Europe as a competitive knowledge-based society. The first report, presented by Italian MEP Renato Brunetta, addressed the issue of access to and interconnection of electronic communications. The report on a directive which seeks to harmonise Members States' approach in these areas was adopted by the Parliament. The report emphasised that national regulatory authorities (NRAs) must require all operators to provide interconnection and comply with reasonable demands for access on 'transparent, fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms'. Parliament emphasised the importance of light regulation and only wished to see NRAs oblige conditions, such as prices, on operators if there has been clear distortion of competition or if prices have been sustained at excessively high levels over a long period of time. But it also went on to request further clarification of the term 'access' that the Commission uses, and also asked for greater transparency on the issue of roaming, both international (where a network can be used by the subscribers of another network) and national (where new operators can initially use the facilities of existing operators). Parliament also voted in favour of the report presented by Finnish MEP Reino Paasilinna on the Commission's proposal for a common regulatory framework for telecommunications networks. Parliament adopted 77 amendments proposed by the Committee on industry on the directive, which aims to provide a harmonised, regulatory framework with agreed principles and objectives in the European Member States. Some of the amendments addressed the need for clarification of the role of NRAs. The information available to NRAs must be passed onto the Commission if it is key to the Commission's directive, information which must remain confidential but which can be passed onto other Member States unless the NRA specifically indicates that it should not be. In addition, an amendment was passed that a reasonable period should be allowed for comment before an NRA enacts measures which regulate the markets. Another clarification issue was the subject of one of the amendments, that of the definition of a significant market player. Parliament wants a market player to be deemed to have significant market power if 'it persistently enjoys a position of economic strength affording it the power to behave independently of competitors, customers and consumers; or if it has the ability to restrict access to users by other telecom operators; or if it has sufficient market power at any stage in the supply chain to appreciably distort competition as a result of being vertically integrated.' Finally, Parliament voted in favour of a report presented by German MEP Angelika Niebler concerning the Commission's proposed directive regulating authorisation and licensing of electronic communication networks and services, which will replace the present directive 97/13/EC. This present directive has not ensured that Member States all have a similarly organised licensing procedure, with differences emerging in length, content and cost. While welcoming the general thrust given to the directive by the Commission, Parliament passed some amendments which would give greater clarity to the process. In one, it proposed a number of criteria which would require objective justifications for a license. In another, it called for the costs of a license to be distributed evenly over the period of the license. It also called for Member States not to interfere with or change the conditions of the license during its valid period, unless there is a need to do so on public safety grounds, which should entail offering compensation to the operator. Finally, Parliament stressed that a better balance needs to be struck between frequencies taken up by commercial and public service providers.