Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-28-Speech-3-120"
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"en.20010228.7.3-120"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the biggest change going on in Europe is obviously the opportunity to network, and this is of particular political importance because the participation of ordinary citizens in it is becoming ever more dependent on their level of income, and sometimes where they live. In addition, it is those very people that are on the wrong side of the digital divide who are already today’s excluded citizens. The aims of an electronic Europe and civil society will thus not be achieved without network services helping people to establish connections with one another and get organised accordingly. We need to create a basic amount of telecommunications time for everyone, so that everyone can use the telecommunications and information society services without charge. It would be an important addition to citizens’ rights. In this way a person could function in the networked society and we would not be creating an elite network.
As much as EUR 170 billion are estimated to have gone into radio spectrum auctions. This huge amount of money was obviously noticed in political circles and part of the profits was taken for the benefit of society. Apart from anything else, the timing was unfortunate. The US economy started to wane and the Union decided to build a Europe that would embrace all its citizens, which is our main strategy. This auction policy works against this, as now the charges for telecommunications services are rising. Investors have begun to shun the industry and the production of the next generation of networks, equipment and services is slowing down. The result is more problems, the stock market value of many operators having collapsed.
The Commission’s framework directive, as with other provisions relating to this package, is a relevant and balanced solution, and I thank them accordingly. The framework directive is a move towards the regulation of all telecommunications networks and services. With it the number of provisions will fall to less than a third of what there are at present. What is most surprising about all this is that the telecommunications industry, in which goods move across borders at the speed of electrical current, has no coherent European market. On the contrary, the same EU provisions have been interpreted in very many different ways and in many areas exorbitantly high charges have been maintained. Genuine competition has been prevented through many forms of trickery. As the telecommunications services sector has grown, costs have become an ever more important factor for both households and countries’ economies in general. Certain big players in the industry are all for competition in other sectors, but are in truth against it in their own. The bigger the market and the more powerful a company is, the more effectively it can compete with smaller companies in the market and the new players trying to enter the market, and that is true of those other markets.
In my own proposal I have increased the scope of the national regulatory authorities and supported an improvement in resources. At the same time, I propose an increase in transparency. The national regulatory authorities are by far the best agencies to assess the situation in their own market, but I believe that it is the Commission that is best placed to assess the situation regarding the telecommunications markets throughout the Union as a whole. I also believe that if the Commission had had the proper powers the auction principle would hardly have been established of the type and on the scale we know at present. The Commission must act when a Member State is not complying with common telecommunications legislation. It is essential for companies that they are able to function on the same terms and conditions throughout the Union. As a result of Commission action we will also be able to avoid having to establish a separate pan-European regulator. As the auction principle could also extend to other resources caught in a bottleneck and new generations of mobile phone networks, I would ask the Commission now to investigate the situation comprehensively for Parliament regarding the effect of auctions on companies and consumers.
Another essential sector is the definition of significant market player. We in the committee have broadened the notion in the light of recent developments. A significant market player is now also one that has the continued ability to limit other operators' contacts with users. The same goes for a situation where a company operates in several parts of the production chain and has a significant position in one of them. We consider that many companies are in a dominant position in markets in which they can, as it were, tacitly agree on the swings in the market that will touch others."@en1
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