Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-28-Speech-3-134"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010228.7.3-134"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the first phase of the internal market is drawing to a close, marking the end of monopolies and the opening up of national markets to competition. Today we are debating the options for the second phase.
The question has been raised, and it is more than a question, it is a choice. Mr van Velzen was one of many who said that our aim is a great pan-European market. I concur. Today, however, we are discussing the options of ‘how’ to achieve this, and there is a difference between choosing to achieve genuine and sustainable competition, as in a traditional sector – which is what Mr Brunetta advocates – and what we would like, which is different; i.e. public regulation of networks in Europe, with competing services but alongside the development of a universal service, and, where necessary, possible sharing of infrastructure. What is at stake, therefore, is the debate on how the market will be regulated rather than the objective of creating a pan-European market.
We believe that the option being considered is of dubious value; i.e. to have national regulation of the telecommunications market and common rules on genuine competition on a Community level. It is unsound, because, currently, national regulation means every man for himself. All the Members of this House have criticised the problems of allocating radio frequencies, the extreme variations in licence costs, the excessive debts of some of the operators, and so there may be risks of the telephone market crashing just as the property market crashed a while back.
Therefore, we are not favouring indiscriminate national regulation but we are in favour of the rules of competition, even if, for example, the Commission has tried to move towards the concept of a relevant market, which is not supported by the Council and we have to deal with – and the Commission, perhaps, is not moving in this direction – issues on development of a universal service, problems with investment savings and on sharing of the networks so as to be able to reduce costs.
We would therefore advocate – and I personally would advocate – a system of European regulators, basically to create a pan-European market, but we come up against the European framework of references and rules, and I believe that we are going to have to look more closely into this, because the solution that we currently have is an absolute hybrid, I must stress this. The proposed package, which will result from all these negotiations, cannot be seen as set in stone. Despite the efforts some have made, it is another regulatory nightmare. That is why I believe that we need to widen the public debate on the action plan that you are outlining, by involving civil societies to a much greater extent in order to reach agreement."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples