TELECOMMUNICATIONS : MEPS PRESSED TO FINALISE TELECOMS PACKAGE.

"The package proposed by the French EU Presidency is sufficiently close to our position for us to begin negotiations from next week." Malcolm Harbour (EPP-ED, UK),aco-rapporteur on the telecoms package in the European Parliament, therefore wants to speed up the preparation for second reading of the legislative proposal, and see it adopted before the end of the legislature, ie in April 2009 at the latest. The goal is to allow investors and operators to speed up investments judged necessary for the competitiveness of the European economy.

On 27 November, French Secretary of State for Industry and Consumption Luc Chatel obtained unanimity on this vast reform of telecoms rules in the EU. The French EU Presidency has committed to finding a political agreement before the end of its term in December.

This is what the presidents of the EP's Industry and Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committees, Angelika Niebler (EPP-ED, Germany) and Arlene McCarthy (PES, UK), strongly insisted on in their open letter unveiled on 19 November in Strasbourg. "Maintaining the status quo is not an option," warns the letter, also signed by the three rapporteurs on the package, Malcolm Harbour, Catherine Trautmann (PES, France) and Pilar del Castillo (EPP-ED, Spain). "If we fail to revise the regulation at the end of the legislature, we will only favour the sector's great uncertainty, which will be in limbo while we wait for a new proposal presented by a new Parliament and a new Commission," they write in this letter, also sent to the 26 other EU ministers.

Time is running out: MEPs will soon leave to start campaigning for the European elections in June 2009 and the Barroso Commission will be renewed at the end of next year. The EP has done its work as it gave its opinion at first reading on 24 September, by a large majority, by greatly diluting the European Commission's initial proposals, which had been on the joint decision makers' table for a year.

"JOINT RESPONSIBILITY"

MEPs argue for their "balanced position, which provides...