Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-03-Speech-2-263"
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"en.20010703.14.2-263"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you all very sincerely for supporting my report. In the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy we had a very intensive and fruitful debate on the subject of radio spectrum policy, and I received some good amendments not only from my fellow Members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, but also from Members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. I was pleased to incorporate these amendments into my report. In formal terms, these amendments ultimately fitted very well into a compromise that was excepted by the committee with 49 out of 50 votes, with one abstention.
The subject of my report is the Commission's proposal for a decision on a regulatory framework for radio spectrum policy in the European Community. It relates to establishing which institutions will, in future, make decisions about radio spectrum policy and via what procedures. The proposal specifically does not lay down any substantive guidelines about allocating frequencies, that is to say it does not stipulate whether specific frequency bands are to be made available for telecommunications, broadcasting, transport or military purposes. Instead, the proposal is limited to institutional and procedural issues.
The purpose of the directive is to create a reliable regulatory framework which provides a basis for consistently deciding questions about the harmonisation of the use of the radio spectrum, allocation procedures and conditions of use at EU level, in cases where the implementation of EU policy objectives requires the use of frequencies. We need to distinguish between two types of issue here. Firstly, strategic policy decisions have to be taken. On the other hand, policy guidelines also have to be implemented. We are therefore talking about technical implementation measures here. We are already familiar with this distinction between political decisions and technical implementation measures from the Lamfalussy report.
The major significance and consequences of the proposal flow from a number of aspects. The radio spectrum is, because of the ever greater demands being placed on it, increasingly becoming a scarce and valuable economic resource and a decisive factor in employment. Allocation of sections of the spectrum for uses such as communications, broadcasting, transport, police, military and earth observation purposes is becoming more and more complex. Strategic decisions have to be taken in order to balance the needs of commercial users and noncommercial users. Just how valuable radio frequencies have now become is demonstrated by the result of the UMTS licence auction, which the Member States held last year for a narrowly defined section of the spectrum. For Germany, for example, companies were willing to pay EUR 50 billion, and in the United Kingdom it is well known that the auction brought in EUR 38.5 billion. The allocation of frequencies to the various user groups and users must therefore – and this is already a topical issue – be carried out in the most transparent and democratic way possible, whether at Member State level, at European level within the CEPT, and now at EU level as well, if decisions are to be made about Community activities reliant on frequencies.
Of course it goes without saying that European-level decisions about frequency policy have to be made by the European Parliament and the Council. In general, it should be for politicians and in particular the elected representatives of the people to make decisions about an issue as important for society and the economy as frequency policy. The job of putting these decisions into practice, that is to say technical implementation, can be entrusted to the Commission. In doing this, the Commission should also be able to call on the expertise of the CEPT, by seeking advice on how to solve technical problems from the CEPT. The amendments which 49 of the 50 Members in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy agreed provide for exactly that to happen.
However, two of the amendments from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, of which the Commission is no doubt aware, undermine this approach. I am talking about Amendments Nos 22 and 23, which have been tabled in the plenary. Ultimately, the aim of these amendments is to prevent Parliament and the Council making joint decisions about frequency policy in future. Instead, only the Commission and the Council will decide on these matters. I cannot support that, and I therefore urge you to vote against these amendments. On the other hand, I can recommend to you the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and those of my own group, which have been tabled for legal reasons following a recommendation by the Legal Service."@en1
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