Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Commission for its excellent and constructive involvement in the consultation on this telecommunications package. I would also like to sincerely thank the Belgian Presidency, which has shown enormous commitment in its efforts to facilitate a compromise between the Council and Parliament, and I think that if we are able to reach agreement on Wednesday, and I very much hope we will, it will be entirely due to the excellent way in which the Belgian Presidency has handled the negotiations. Thank you very much indeed. However, I also, of course, owe very special thanks to all the rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs who have not only co-operated in such an outstanding way over a period of many months, but have also worked together on the compromises so constructively. Over the last 12 years, the EU has achieved an enormous amount in the telecommunications market. The monopolies of the established service providers have been broken, and there has been complete liberalisation and deregulation of the market in many areas, which has benefited both consumers and the economy in general. One clear result of all this has been a fall in prices and a variety of new products and services from the various providers. But there is, of course, nothing that cannot be improved further. This was evident from the 1999 telecommunications report and from the seventh implementation report recently published by the Commission. I would just like to mention a couple of key concepts: local loop unbundling for the benefit of alternative service providers, where further action is still needed in the Member States, and the subscriber's link to the network, which is still unsatisfactory in some Member States. Some established service providers are still offering dumping prices and there are also still bottlenecks as regards leased lines. The new legal framework for telecommunications regulation should guarantee some remedial action here. I would first like to briefly present my two reports on the telecommunications package and I would then like to turn to two other critical points regarding the other directives. First, then, the Authorisation Directive. The whole point of the Authorisation Directive is to harmonise authorisation arrangements in the Member States. I would like to stress once again, as I said at first reading, that the Commission has produced some excellent proposals here, proposals that I welcomed at first reading and which I specifically wish to support at second reading also. Up to now there have not been uniform procedures for operating communications networks and providing communications services. There have been a variety of different conditions, including, in particular, varying obligations on providers to supply information, there have been variations in the length of the procedures, and the cost and substance of the authorisations has varied. This situation will come to an end with the new Authorisation Directive. The directive also envisages a step change in the authorisation system. Up to now, it has been the practice to issue individual authorisations, but when the Authorisation Directive comes in, there will be a switch to general authorisations, that is to say that, in future, communications network operators will not have to obtain an official licence beforehand, but will only have to demonstrate that they intend to operate a network. However, they will have to comply with the requirements of the general authorisation scheme or of the directives. Obligations on providers, particularly those regarding information, will be simplified by the new directive, with requirements being limited to the essential. So we are talking about a very provider-friendly solution here. One of this Parliament's achievements has been the introduction of greater transparency in the granting of rights of way, for example drawing up a register setting out the procedures for granting rights of way in the Member States, and we have also managed to ensure that legal protection against rulings on rights of ways is guaranteed in all Member States. We would have like to have achieved even more, especially as regards costs. In this case, Parliament stressed the importance of providers, if at all possible, not being burdened with excessive costs in future, if I may put it that way, with regard to rights of way, numbers, the granting of licences and frequencies. As far as this issue is concerned, our discussions have not yet been completed. Should it be necessary to reach a compromise on the whole package, Parliament will surrender its own position in favour of the Council's recommendation. My second report is on the Radio Spectrum Decision. The essential objective of this decision is to involve the Commission more closely in the granting of frequencies in future, which is how it should be. Radio frequencies are sought-after commodities, and frequency allocation involves taking highly political decisions, and we must accordingly ensure that the decision makers who bear political responsibility are involved. The granting of frequencies, frequency assignment and frequency allocation are no longer just a technical matter, nowadays, but a real political game. There are two points on which the Council and Parliament are not yet totally in agreement, and I am therefore particularly pleased to see Mr Daems, the President-in-Office of the Council, here in the Chamber today. Perhaps he could say something about the two points which I am particularly concerned about later on in the debate. One point which Parliament has tackled repeatedly is whether it should itself be involved in future decisions on radio spectrum policy. This House had requested that whenever frequency reallocation, in particular, was at stake, Parliament should, through the codecision procedure, be consulted and involved in the decision-making process. To this end, we also adopted an amendment in committee at second reading that would guarantee us this right in a binding article contained in the directive, in the decision. Now, the Council only wants to include this article or this proposal as a recital in the decision. I would therefore like to ask Mr Daems to consider once more, if we are agreed on this, that Parliament should also be involved in radio spectrum policy via the codecision procedure, in which case we could be included in the decision itself and not just mentioned in a recital. My second point relates to the extent to which the Commission should be concerned with the granting of frequencies. Parliament requested that in the case of frequencies with Community coverage, the Commission should be called upon to intervene or put forward proposals. In the decision, or rather in the Belgian Presidency proposal that I now have before me, I see that by deleting two little words in Amendment No 1, that is to say ‘in particular’, the decision-making power is in fact to be considerably extended. So I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council in this case, too, if he could consider whether we could not agree to delete those two little words, which would mean that we would be respecting the principle of subsidiarity and thus achieving a solution between the Council and Parliament. I find it hard to believe that the Council could not accept this too. I would now like to touch on two other points, concerning the framework directive and the Universal Service Directive. First of all, I absolutely must thank the Belgian Presidency very sincerely once again. The Belgian Presidency has worked out an excellent compromise for Article 6. This is about who will have power of decision in future when there are questions about telecommunications law – the Commission or the Member States. I believe that this House can accept the compromise that has emerged. Many Members would have liked us to go further in this area, but that was just not achievable. However, the compromise that has now emerged, according to which the Commission can intervene in matters of competition law, and in particular in matters of market definition and with regard to what constitutes significant market power, is, I believe, a very fair one. I would now like to turn to a point that I regard as particularly significant, and then I shall conclude. We have been concerned for many years as to how we can promote digital television still further in Europe. The amended proposals from the Belgian Presidency have been one of the greatest disappointments in all this, so that we will achieve nothing or very little in this area. Two points have emerged. The first is whether we can extend transmission obligations to APIs and IPGs. This Parliament unanimously advocated this in all the negotiations. I would ask, once again, that great thought should be given to this or that the Commission should consider how we can achieve this. Furthermore, on the subject of a commonly agreed standard for digital television in the European Union, I believe that we need to go further than the Belgian Presidency has indicated so far. Perhaps the Commission could give a clear signal here, too, in order to help digital television to make a genuine breakthrough in Europe. IN THE CHAIR: MR PUERTAVice-President

Political group: PPE-DE