TELECOMMUNICATIONS : PARLIAMENT TAKES TELECOMS PACKAGE TO PIECES.

MEPs have started dismantling the telecoms package presented in September 2013 by the European Commission. Call roaming, network access and trans-European licences for operators - the main elements of the single telecoms market have either been rejected or completely changed by the rapporteurs for the two competent parliamentary committees: Pilar del Castillo (EPP, Spain) for the Committee on Industry (ITRE) and Malcolm Harbour (ECR, UK) for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO).

A sort of regulatory Frankenstein, this package suprised MEPs, operators and consumers with its timing, and disappointed everyone with its content. Nonetheless, MEPs got down to work without delay. The ITRE committee will examine the compromise amendments on 22 January in Brussels.

CONSUMERS

The IMCO committee began by removing the carburetor from the engine: at its 9 January meeting, following Harbour's recommendations, it withdrew all changes relating to contracts (transparency, duration, cost of receiving calls abroad) from the proposed new regulation, transforming them into amendments to the current Directive 2009/136/EC on universal service and users' rights.

The European Commission's argument for a regulation was that consumers' rights should be harmonised across the entire EU. On the contrary, Harbour claims that the digital environment is evolving so rapidly that directives are required. These can be adapted to national specificities and applied by national regulatory authorities, who are closer to the ground. BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, is taking a similar line. All the same, MEPs have taken on board new rights for clients of telecoms operators.

ROAMING

MEPs have not spared roaming, the 'sexiest' proposal in the package for candidates for the European elections. Del Castillo finds the Commission's proposal to reduce the cost of calls abroad (Article 37) too complicated, particularly one year before the mid-term check-up on the...