Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking all my colleagues for supporting my report on the authorisation directive and for proposing a great many extremely useful amendments which I have willingly included in my report. I should also like to thank the Commission and the Council Presidencies for working with us in a highly constructive manner over recent weeks and months. Turning now to the authorisation directive and my report. How do things currently stand as regards the authorisation procedure for communication services and networks in the European Union? According to the Commission's fifth and sixth reports on the implementation of the reform package for the telecommunications sector and according to the reports of the European Telecommunication Office, the Member States all have completely different licensing regimes. This causes problems, especially for operators offering cross-border telecommunications services, and means that, at present, a business in the telecommunications sector can only start trading once an authority has so decided, i.e. once an individual licence has been issued. These individual licences vary enormously from one Member State to another; some licences have extensive information requirements attached, others have none at all. As a result, the licensing procedures in the individual Member States take varying lengths of time, the terms and conditions differ and the fees charged vary widely. The purpose of the authorisation directive submitted by the Commission is to remedy this. The directive calls for simpler, more harmonised rules for market access for electronic communications services and networks in the Community. Future licensing regimes must be fair, predictable and the least cumbersome possible for applicants. Some Member States have already put this into practice and it is therefore good and the Commission is right to propose that such regimes be introduced throughout Europe. A couple of comments on the content of the proposed directive. In future, network operators or communication service providers will no longer need to obtain an individual licence, i.e. to get permission from the authorities before providing their services. They will merely be required to meet the conditions set out in general licences. At the same time, the number of conditions that can be imposed on service providers has been sharply reduced and harmonised at European level. The proposal also provides that, in future, service providers will no longer have to furnish comprehensive information. In future, the national licensing authorities will only be able to demand the information which is strictly necessary for the authorities to verify compliance with the conditions for authorisation. The change in licensing regimes will ensure that service providers are able to provide their telecommunications services and networks quickly, and without a great deal of red tape, throughout Europe. This is in my opinion, without doubt, a milestone on the path towards a dynamic and competition-orientated market for electronic communications in the Community. I should like to address a problem which currently hits operators hard in practice. Time and again they come up against serious difficulties as regards the granting of rights of way. Here again, the Member States have very different rules on procedures, fees and conditions. This makes it even more difficult to develop an infrastructure – unnecessarily so. Laying long telecommunications cables is an expensive business. Operators have to apply for a whole series of rights of way in towns, communes and districts. They have to obtain planning permission. They often need consent from hundreds of property owners before they can start trading as operators. The directive should therefore at least place Member States under an obligation to publish a list of charges, procedures and conditions in connection with the granting of rights of way. This would at least give operators an overview of the legal situation, thereby saving a great deal of time when applying for rights of way. Finally, the subject of administrative charges is another crucial point. Administrative charges as a whole should mirror the costs incurred in administering and controlling general authorisations more closely. The directive provides here for the Member States to publish reports in order to make the costs transparent. The proposal for a directive apportions the administrative charges between the individual undertakings providing services under a general authorisation. I disagree with the Commission proposal and consider that they should be apportioned equally between applicants, rather than on the basis of the turnover of the undertaking in question. Smaller undertakings, with annual turnover of up to EUR 10 million, should be exempt from any charges, thereby making it easier for small and medium-sized undertakings to access the market. That concludes the introduction to my report. I should now like to take the liberty of highlighting an important aspect of Mr Paasilinna's report. As Mr Paasilinna has already explained, the Commission proposal stipulates that the national regulatory authorities will, as a rule, no longer be allowed to take important decisions on telecommunications regulations independently. Instead, they will simply prepare drafts, which the Commission will examine within one month and either approve or reject, as appropriate. If the draft is rejected, the Commission has a further two months in which to give the regulatory authority in question a decision. The Commission would also decide in future if and on what frequencies radio communications can be broadcast. Parliament has always taken the view that this is a matter solely for the individual Member States. I should therefore like expressly to object to this proposal, which is also contained in Amendment No 33 by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and was adopted in committee by a broad majority. I personally am positive that the national authorities are closer to the market than the Commission and are therefore better placed to decide how and to what extent the telecommunications markets can be further liberalised on a case-by-case basis. The liberalisation of the telecommunications markets has been a real success story. Consumers today have a choice of service providers and telephone charges have fallen rapidly. There is no cause, especially at this stage of the proceedings, to take the reins away from the successful national regulators and hand them to the Commission. This would only complicate and slow down the decision-making process. I have re-tabled the proposed amendment which Parliament will be voting on tomorrow. I refer to Amendment No 78. I ask you to support this amendment and thank you for listening.

Political group: PPE-DE