27 June Telecommunications Council

Date: 04/07/1996

STILL split over the pace of liberalisation, member states failed once again to agree to open the EU's postal services to competition, with ministers delaying discussion of an Italian compromise text which proposes a slower pace of market opening than that put forward by the European Commission. The Italian proposal suggests putting off the second stage of liberalisation indefinitely, an idea broadly supported by the EU's more protectionist members, but shunned by its liberalisers. The original proposal would have allowed private couriers to deliver all mail weighing more than 350 grams or costing five times more than the standard letter from the start and opened 'direct' (junk) and incoming cross-border mail to competition from 2001. Ministers made some progress on the delicate issue of universal service - the principle that every address whether in the Alps or in Paris should be reachable by post.

A RESOLUTION guaranteeing universal telecommunications services was shelved by ministers after differences emerged between the bloc's liberalisers and its protectionists. Ministers remained fundamentally divided over which services should be included in the definition of universal service - ensuring that all citizens are able to buy basic phone services at a reasonable price once state phone monopolies are abolished. Countries such as Sweden, Finland and the UK want the definition limited to voice and fax services, and to public pay phones, but more cautious member states, led by Belgium and France, want it extended to services such as the Internet.

RULES to protect the privacy of clients in a liberalised telecommunications world were agreed. Under the legislation, telephone operators will be obliged to protect personal data about their clients ranging from bills to caller-identification systems.

MINISTERS agreed to update existing Open Network Provision directives due in 1998 to take account of market liberalisation. The amended directive will apply to firms with at least a 25&percent; share of the “relevant leased line market ... in a particular geographic area”. The directive says that a separation between government's regulatory and its telecoms business must be made. But it allows member states to decide how to achieve such a separation.

Ministers could not agree on whether, and to what extent, governments should be allowed to limit the number of phone licences handed out in a liberalised regime. Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg, for instance, want member states to be allowed to limit the number of operators in a given sector, but others are in favour of granting licences to all companies which meet the requirements.