Telephony row defused

Date: 12/10/1995

By Fiona McHugh

A DISPUTE between the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament which threatened to destroy plans to open up the EU's voice telephony market to competition has been defused.

Having weighed its options, the Parliament has decided to drop demands for a greater say in implementation procedures for the voice telephony directive rather than risk rejection of it for a second time, according to British Socialist rapporteur Imelda Read.

“We have been to the barricades once over this directive - we thought it might reflect badly on us if we had another go at the Council,” she said.

But despite its climb-down, the assembly remains annoyed with the Council for insisting that pivotal elements of the voice telephony directive, once adopted, should be supervised by a committee composed of experts from the member states.

In the Parliament's eyes, Council is trying to win back power signed away in an agreement, the so-called modus vivendi, earlier this year. That agreement promised MEPs a say in the implementation and review procedure, a pledge they claim is now being broken.

But with formal conciliation meetings between the two institutions looming, MEPs decided not to resist - at least not this time.

“We decided we could not fight this battle on a directive-by-directive basis without losing credibility,” says Read.

The first draft of the directive in 1994 won the dubious honour of going down in EU history as the first piece of legislation to be killed by the Parliament under the new “co-decision-making” procedure introduced by the Maastricht Treaty.

It was rejected then by the assembly over the same issue - implementation and review processes.

The Parliament is still pressing for a clause in the directive which would make telecom operators compensate customers if service levels promised in contracts are not met - a clause which is likely to meet with resistance in the Council.

“If you buy waterproof shoes and they leak then you are entitled to your money back. The same should hold for utilities,” says Read.

The directive is due to be voted on during the Parliament's next plenary session in Strasbourg from 23 to 27 October.