TELECOMMUNICATIONS : ROMANIA AND BULGARIA IN TROUBLE WITH THE COMMISSION.

There has been a new round of infringement proceedings in the telecoms sector. Romania in particular has been sent a letter of formal notice for having dismissed the president of the national regulator in 2008. The European Commission describes that as "a serious violation of the regulator's independence" in a press release, on 29 January. It is all the more serious as, after a court decision suspending this measure, Bucharest went ahead to restructure and rename this authority.

The EU's Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding has spoken on the telephone with Gabriel Sandu, the new Romanian Communications and Information Technology Minister - who inherited the problem - "to discuss ways to put an end to this illegal situation", stressed the Commission. "For us, the issue is not this or that person, but that long-term, stable solutions are found to secure the independence of whoever is at the helm of the regulator," said the commissioner.

Bulgaria is also in the line of fire. The Commission has written to the national regulator calling on it to reduce mobile termination rates that operators charge to connect the call of another operator's customer. In 2008, mobile termination rates in Bulgaria where, at 15.09 eurocents/minute, the highest in the EU (EU average: 8.7 eurocents/minute), resulting in higher bills for subscribers. The Commission also asks Bulgaria not to discriminate when setting the level of termination rates between fixed and mobile...