TELCOMMUNICATIONS : PES SLAMS PROPOSAL FOR EUROPEAN REGULATOR.

Tensions are rising in the European Parliament with regard to the proposal for a European telecoms regulator. Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding had to defend the proposal during a debate with the EP's Socialist group (PES) on 14 February in Brussels.

"We still have to discuss this agency proposal. We are in favour of coordination, on the initiative of the Commission, between national regulators," declared Robert Goebbels of Luxembourg, vice-president of the PES, considering that the creation of an agency is "always an easy solution" and that it is necessary to "openly discuss other means".

"Do we perhaps need a new structure?" asked his German colleague, Erika Mann.

While the EU wants to do away with bureaucracy, creating an agency does not appear to be a way of reducing red tape, noted France's Catherine Trautmann. The rapporteur for regulatory issues is concerned about the lack of transparency of the new rules and the role of the EP, particularly in the framework of the proposal for the liberalisation and management of the radioelectric spectrum, to which the authority will contribute in terms of the harmonisation of radiofrequencies.

"I am not the kind of commissioner who creates an agency for the pleasure of creating an agency," retorted Reding, affirming that it was not a question of an "agency" - she referred to it as an "authority" - but rather the exact opposite of an "enormous bureaucracy".

This super regulator' will benefit from the expertise of national regulators by creating a "common direction". In particular, it will assist the Commission in its surveillance work for the implementation of the regulation and will, according to Reding, strengthen the role of the EP. "Today, the Parliament has nothing to say about the European Regulators Group (ERG)," she asserted, pointing out that the ERG, which brings together the 27 national regulators, only provides an advisory role to the Commission.

THREE PILLARS

The commissioner criticises national regulators today for their adoption of different remedies to similar problems of competition...

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