The commissioner in charge of competition for the European Union told an audience recently that while there has been a “dramatic breakthrough” in the liberalization of telecommunications, many things have yet to be decided.
“We can certainly see the growth potential and the possibilities of Europe’s telecommunications market, but we cannot, we must not, predict or pre-empt its exact shape,” said Commissioner Karel Van Miert.
The EU set 1998 as the deadline for member countries to have opened telecom markets to competition. Van Miert said that the commission is working to streamline procedures and revise merger regulation so matters can be dealt with more quickly and “coherently” than under current procedures.
As countries develop competition policy, the commission is concerned that the policies address three things: access to networks, access to customers and the formation of multimedia operations.
By Nov. 15, member states must notify the commission of liberalization measures they are taking for mobile networks and services. By 1997, licensing arrangements must be shared with the commission, as well as interconnect agreements and mechanisms for universal service.
The recent July 1 deadline to notify the commission of alternative infrastructures was successfully met by most members.
“Apart from four of the five eligible countries applying for derogations due to small or less developed networks, all the member states are generally on track and many are already in advance of our timetable to lift restrictions on all services and infrastructure,” Van Miert said.
Countries will not be allowed to miss the deadline.
“I am determined to use the full potential of the Competition Rules of the Treaty to maintain a tough stance in this area. We cannot tolerate tardy or incomplete implementation at this stage,” he said. The commission has the legal tools to start infringement procedures after the deadline has passed.
Van Miert said the commission will watch commercial relations between dominant incumbents and their new competitors and wholesale customers. The commission soon will release a notice outlining how the EU Treaty will be applied to competition matters.
“I am talking about access and interconnect agreements,” he said. The notice “should represent a clear indication to market players as to the way complaints regarding abuse of dominant position, discrimination and/or collusive behavior between operators will be decided.”
“With a few precedent-setting decisions, we hope to discourage anticompetitive practices from the onset. Thus, neither market players nor the commission services need face the untenable situation of having each and every interconnection or access agreement scrutinized on a case-by-case basis,” Van Miert said.
The EU may create a new body, the European Telecoms Regulatory Agency, to provide a clear EU perspective in world conferences, such as before the International Telecommunications Union.
“The challenge of true cooperation and coordination between the national regimes is clearly intensifying. This is becoming most urgent in fields such as numbering, frequencies and spectrum management and technical specifications. Not only do we need EU coherence in these matters for our own internal market, but we also need to be in a position to truly speak with one voice in international forums,” Van Miert said.
