Commission adopts draft notice on access agreements in telecoms
The European Commission has adopted a draft notice on access agreements in the telecommunications sector. Access agreements are central to allowing market participants to benefit fully from telecommunications liberalization. The draft notice, which forms part of the Commission's Action Plan for the Information Society, clarifies the role that the competition rules will play in resolving access problems. It does not establish new principles of competition law, but demonstrates how the existing principles will be applied to new types of problems occurring in the context of the liberalization of the telecoms sector. The draft notice aims to do three things. Firstly, to set out access principles stemming from EU competition law in order to create greater market certainty and more stable conditions for investment and commercial initiative in the telecoms and multimedia sectors. Secondly, to define and clarify the relationship between competition law and sector specific legislation. And, thirdly, to explain how competition rules will be applied in a consistent way across the converging sectors involved in the provision of new multimedia services especially to access issues and gateways. The draft Notice deals with the relationship between the applications of the competition rules and sector-specific regulation. In particular, this refers to the ONP directives issued under the EC's Open Network Provision framework and national regulations. The second part defines, in general terms, relevant markets in the context of access agreements. In the third part, some principles regarding the application of Articles 85 and 86 to access agreements are developed. The notice is being published in the Official Journal of the European Communities in draft form for comment. Comments should be made within two months of the publication of the draft notice in the Official Journal. In practice, they will be accepted at any time up to the end of February.