Mr President, I am reminded on occasions like this how very specialised these debates must appear to the rest of Parliament given that we are so small in number. Seeing so many friendly and familiar faces here this evening, however, I am also reminded that we perhaps make up in sheer intelligence and talent for the lack of numbers that we are able to muster this evening, merry gang of telecoms specialists that we are. On a more serious note, I would like to thank many colleagues here this evening for their support and cooperation in producing this report, which really was a collective effort. I know that all parliamentary reports are collective efforts, but this one very much represented a collective effort by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy as a whole, including the shadow spokespeople. This was reflected in the unanimous vote in our committee. It is not an exaggeration to say that this report represents a welcome new development in the way in which Parliament is working, in the way in which we are increasingly not only promulgating and amending legislation, but also developing a highly welcome preoccupation about how that legislation is subsequently implemented. It would be irresponsible for us as legislators not to pay due attention to what happens to our worthy texts once they are adopted as legislative texts. This is a model example of not only cooperation across parties, but also cooperation between institutions in ensuring implementation is properly and fully pursued. I would like to isolate four points which are of particular significance. First, in urging the Commission to take action against those Member States that have not yet implemented the telecoms legislation in good time, and welcoming any action already taken, it is important to remember that we stress in paragraph 3 of this report that we also believe the Commission should continually look at innovative ways of not only forcing implementation on those reluctant Member States, but also encouraging implementation by benchmarking and comparative analyses. The Commission can produce these in order to urge the laggards to take a good example from those Member States who are perhaps more advanced. Second, our comments in this report on the regulatory structure and the European Regulatory Group are important. In paragraph 22, we put it on record that we feel that the existence of the European Regulators Group – the ERG – and the Independent Regulators Group – the IRG – is increasingly illogical because there is so much overlap between the two. Whilst many of us here understand that the Commission cannot take a formal position on this, it is worth stressing this evening that we feel there is absolutely no logical reason why these two bodies should coexist as is currently the case. A merger between the ERG and the IRG is desirable. I would like to see more proactive input from the Commission as regards the accession countries, and the degree to which they are abiding not only by the old framework but also looking to adopt the new framework. In our discussions with the Commission on this report, the Commission explained that it would be too onerous and complicated to meet an initial demand made by myself and others for specific reports on the implementation of telecoms law in the accession countries. In the end we urged the Commission to collate more information on the state of play in the accession countries. However, it is important that it should be taken seriously. If one looks at the monitoring reports issued recently by the Commission, there are only about two or three paragraphs on the telecoms sector in many of these countries. That really is not good enough. As they approach their own date of entry into the European Union, it is essential that we monitor that situation more closely than perhaps has been the case hitherto. Finally, I would like to draw special attention to the importance of paragraph 9 in our report, which stresses once again that notwithstanding the emphasis in all the regulatory activity in recent years on increasing access-based competition, our long-term goal has to remain facilities-based competition. That is sometimes obscured by all the battles we have about local loop unbundling, bit stream access and so on. At the end of the day, what we want for the benefit of European consumers, let alone European telecoms operators, is sustainable, robust, facilities-based competition. It is to that end that I hope this implementation report has made some contribution.

Political group: ELDR