CELEX: 51996PC0444
Language: en
Date: 1996-09-17
Title: AMENDED PROPOSAL FOR A DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on a series of guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
                                      Brussels, 17.09.1996
                                      COM(96) 444 final
                                     95/0124 (COD)
           OPINION OF THE COMMISSION
   pursuant to Article 189 b (2) (d) of the EC Treaty,
        on the European Parliament's amendments
    to the Council's common position regarding the
                      proposal for a
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL DECISION
                on a series of guidelines
  for trans-European telecommunications networks
AMENDING THE PROPOSAL OF THE COMMISSION
     pursuant to Article 189 a (2) of the EC Treaty
 ---pagebreak---  ---pagebreak---                          EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
1.  Introduction
1.1 On 8 June 1995 the Commission sent the European Parliament and the Council a
    proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of
    guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks (COM(95) 224
    Final).
1.2 On 21 March 1996 the Council adopted a common position on the Commission's
    proposal, in accordance with the second indent of Article 189b(2) of the EC Treaty.
1.3 On 17 July 1996 the European Parliament adopted its opinion on the Council's
    common position, in accordance with Article 189b(2)(d) of the EC Treaty.
1.4 This text sets out the Commission's opinion on the 26 amendments adopted by
    Parliament, in accordance with Article 189b(2)(d) of the EC Treaty. The reasons
    underlying that opinion are given in paragraph 3 below. In addition, in Annex I, the
    left-hand column contains the text of the parts of the common position concerned by
    the amendments accepted by the Commission and the right-hand column the text of
    those parts altered in accordance with the amendments accepted.
2.  Aim of the proposal
    The proposal aims at the adoption by the European Parliament and the Council, in
    accordance with the codecision procedure, of a series of guidelines (within the meaning
    of Article 129c of the Treaty on European Union) consisting of the objectives,
    priorities, main lines of measures and spheres of common-interest projects, for trans-
    European telecommunications networks. In the spheres of common-interest projects
    identified in Annex I to the Decision, it is planned that, on the basis of a work
    programme updated as necessary (probably every year), the Commission will publish
    calls for proposals designed to specify, on the basis of the specification criteria covered
    by Annex H, projects of specific common interest, with the assistance of a type Ilia
    committee).
    The proposal stresses the priority given to applications of common interest which, in
    the context of opening up competition in the sector, are those through which public
    intervention, notably by stimulating partnerships between the public and private
    sectors, can provide Community citizens, businesses and administrations with the set of
    tools they need to enter the Information Society.
 ---pagebreak--- 3.  Commission position on the amendments presented at a second reading by the
    European Parliament
3.1 Amendments accepted
    The Commission accepts eight of the 26 amendments adopted by Parliament, namely
    Nos 1, 3, 5, 16, 20, 23, 25 and 27.
    Amendment 1 points out that the trans-European network projects are operational
    rather than experimental projects, and makes the necessary coordination applicable to
    all the projects concerned by decisions on trans-European networks, rather than
    referring only to IDA. Both changes are appropriate.
    Amendment 3 provides for coordination to ensure interoperability of trans-European
    networks and national networks of the same type.
    Amendment 5 is relevant in pointing out that the setting-up of the trans-European
    networks will also provide experience on the effects of these networks on social
    activity.
    Amendment 16 adds useful detail under the heading "distance education and training".
    Amendment 20 adds useful detail under the heading "cultural and linguistic heritage".
    Amendment 23 aptly points out the benefits of developing intelligent agents and tools
    for personalizing applications.
    Amendment 25 proposes a more precise text on coordination between Community and
    national programmes.
    Amendment 27 incorporates into the body of the Decision what amounts to a
    Commission statement defining the transnational nature of trans-European networks.
3.2 Amendments acceptable in part
    The Commission can accept two amendments in part (one of which implies full
    acceptance of two other amendments), since they tighten up the provisions of the act
    These are amendments 9 and 15 (linked to 13 and 21).
    The end of amendment 9 underlines a Treaty obligation that is important for the
    implementation of the Decision.
    Amendment 15 is useful, after deletion of the excessively radical part concerning local
    languages, and thefinalpart, linked to the problem of the decision-making mechanism.
 ---pagebreak---     This amendment, in combination with amendments 13 and 21 (which deletes the
    heading "Citizens' access to services", is of a fairly horizontal nature and fits more
    logically into the introduction of the applications), organizes the introduction of the
    spheres relating to applications more rationally and clearly. Amendments 13 and 21
    could therefore be accepted in full. These three amendments form a whole and should
    be treated together.
    The Commission has incorporated the parts of the text of amendments 9 and 15 that it
    can accept, together with amendments 13 and 21 in full, into the amended proposal set
    out in Annex I.
3.3 Amendments which cannot be accepted
    This concerns the six amendments Nos 12, 17, 18, 19, 22 and 24, namely a group of
    amendments concerning the decision-making mechanism for specific projects.
    The reasons behind the Commission position on these amendments are as follows:
     Amendment 12 proposes a text which is too restrictive for a sector where private
    initiative is of prime importance: the text of the common position guarantees Member
     States' support for projects, which is more in line with their level of involvement in the
     projects and appears to be sufficient.
     Amendment 17 relates to a sphere which has had to be reworded to bring it into line
     with the TEN-transport guidelines as adopted. The reference to transport priorities,
     added by this amendment, is not justified, since the new wording covers only user-
     oriented services, not the traffic management services to which the added priorities
     could be applied.
     The Commission would have liked to retain the concept of amendment 18. in a form
     blending less restrictively elements covered by the Decision and others relating more to
     labour legislation. It could have been worded as follows:
     "Special attention should be paid to assessing and taking account of the social
    consequences of the applications."
     However, since the procedure at second reading does not allow the original wording of
     Parliament's amendments to be amended, the Commission has to reject this
     amendment.
     Amendment 19 is not sufficiently focused and does not allow for an itemized approach
     adapted to the different aspects of teleadministration.
    Amendments 22 and 24 create a certain confusion regarding the respective roles of
    generic services and of applications.
 ---pagebreak--- Amendments Nos 2. 6. 7. 8. beginning of 9. 10. 11. 14 and 26 concern the decision-
making mechanism for specific projects. The management mechanism presented in the
original proposal and retained in the common position provides for the adoption by
codecision of the objectives, priorities, spheres of common-interest projects and
project specification criteria, i.e. all the key elements of the management of the
programme. The only additional variable is the situation of the sector at the moment
that, on the basis of these factors laid down by the Parliament and the Council, the
Commission, assisted by the Committee, publishes the call for proposals with a view to
assembling the market's offers of projects; none of the three institutions has any
influence over that situation at that particular moment.
The amendments concerned fundamentally change the common position on three
points:
        They require the work programme on which the annual call for proposals is
        based, and the list of common-interest projects resulting from that call for
        proposals, to be adopted through codecision; since that procedure takes some
         18 months, that provision alone would render the Decision impractical.
        They impose a priority order among the priorities set out in Article 3; this
        reduces excessively theflexibilityrequired to adapt the action to the situation
        of the sector. Moreover, the use of the priorities of Article 3 in combination
        with the project specification criteria of Annex II already establishes a system
        with rigid constraints in which it is also difficult to take account of a priority
        order among the priorities.
        They change the nature of the committee when in fact the Commission prefers
        not to deviate from a well established practice for the management of identical
        decision-making mechanisms, notably as regards research programmes.
The Commission was therefore unable to accept this group of amendments.
Conclusion
The Commission recommends that the Council approve the amended proposal set out
la Annex I.
 ---pagebreak---          AMENDED PROPOSAL FOR A DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
                                      AND THE COUNCIL
                                   on a series of guidelines
                    for trans-European telecommunications networks
COMMON POSITION                                    AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                                   (Amendment 1)
Recital 17                                         Recital 17
Whereas effective coordination needs to be         Whereas effective coordination needs to be
ensured between the development of the             ensured between the development of the
trans-European           telecommunications        trans-European           telecommunications
networks, which must address real-world            networks, which must address real-world
concerns, and the different Community              concerns, without attempting to carry out
programmes, in particular the specific             purely experimental projects, and the
programmes of the fourth framework                 different Community programmes, in
programme for research, technological              particular the specific programmes of the
development        and        demonstration,       fourthframeworkprogramme for research,
programmes in         favour    of SMEs,           technological         development       and
comprising      an      information-content-       demonstration, programmes in favour of
oriented programme (such as INFO 2000,             SMEs, comprising an information-content-
MEDIA 2) and other Information Society             oriented programme (such as INFO 2000
activities; whereas such coordination must         and MEDIA 2) and other Information
also be ensured with the projects provided         Society      activities;    whereas   such
for by Council Decision 95/468/EC of 6             coordination must also be ensured with the
November 1995 on a Community                       projects provided for by their Decisions
contribution for telematic interchange of          applying to trans-European networks:
data between administrations in the
Community (IDA)
 ---pagebreak--- COMMON POSITION                              AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                             (Amendment 3)
Recital 22                                   Recital 22
(22) Whereas the Commission will have to     (22) Whereas the Commission will have
undertake actions to ensure interoperability to undertake actions to                ensure
of the networks and coordinate the           interoperability of the networks and
activities of the Member States aiming at    coordinate the activities of the Member
implementation       of     trans-European   States aiming at implementation of
telecommunications networks;                 trans-European          telecommunications
                                             networks and of comparable national
                                             projects:
                                             (Amendment 5)
Article 2,firstindent                        Article 2,firstindent
- facilitating the transition towards the    - facilitating the transition towards the
 Information Society, in particular to       information society as well as providing
promote satisfaction of social and cultural  experience on the effects of the deployment
needs and to improve the quality of life;    of new networks and applications on social
                                             activities and to promote the satisfaction of
                                             social and cultural needs and to improve
                                             the quality of life;
 ---pagebreak--- COMMON POSITION                              AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                              (Amendment 9, accepted in part)
Article 7                                     Article 7
1.       A draft work programme shall be      1.       A draft work programme shall be
prepared by the Commission, in conformity     prepared by the Commission, in conformity
with the other trans-European network         with the other trans-European network
policies, in consultation with sector         policies, in consultation with sector
operators, for selecting the areas in which   operators, for selecting the areas in which
specific projects of common interest can be   specific projects can be proposed, within
proposed, within the spheres of projects of   the spheres of projects of common interest
common interest set out in Annex I. The       set out in Annex I. The work programme
work programme shall be updated as            shall be updated as necessary.
necessary.
2.       The work programme shall be the      2.       The work programme shall be the
basis for the establishment of regular calls  basis for the establishment of regular calls
for proposals for projects of common          for proposals for projects of common
interest by the Commission.                   interest by the Commission.
                                              3.       The Commission shall ensure that
                                              projects relating to the territory of a
                                              Member State are approved bv the
                                              Member State concerned.
                                              (Amendment 13)
Annex I, introduction, second paragraph,      Annex I, introduction, second paragraph,
first and second indents                      first and second indents
         The Applications layer, through               The Applications layer, through
which users interact with generic services    which users interact with generic services
and basic networks to meet their              and basic networks to meet their
professional, educational and social needs.   professional, educational and social needs.
Applications require to be interoperable to
bring the maximum benefit to users across              The Generic Services layer, made
the Community.                                up of compatible generic services and their
                                              management. Through support of the
         The Generic Services layer, made     applications' common requirements, and by
up of compatible generic services and their   providing common tools for development
management. Through support of the            and implementation of new applications.
applications' common requirements, these      these services supplement applications
services supplement applications whilst       whilst aiding their interoperability.
aiding their interoperability.
 ---pagebreak--- COMMON POSITION                            AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                           (Amendment 15, accepted in part)
Annex 1(1), introduction                   Annex 1(1), introduction
                                           Applications will need to be interoperable
                                           with one another to bring the maximum
                                           benefit to the users across the Community.
                                           Where this can be applicable, they shall
                                           take into account the specific needs of
                                           women and of less developed or less
                                           populated regions. They must address the
                                           widest possible populations of users and
                                           demonstrate citizens' access to services of
                                           collective interest. For the benefit of
                                           disabled people, special requirements
                                            should be taken into account in the early
                                           stage of the planning of projects and with
                                           regard to access to services. An assessment
                                            of the social and societal impact of the
                                           introduction of the applications shall be
                                            carried out after they are deployed.
The spheres in which applications projects  The spheres in which applications projects
of common interest will be identified are   of common interest will be identified are
the following:                             the following:
                                            (Amendment Î6)
Annex I (1), second indent                  Annex 1(1), second indent
         Distance education and training:           Distance education and training:
Advanced distance education and training    Advanced distance education and training
services should be made accessible to all   services should be made accessible for ail
individuals,    schools,   colleges and    citizens, schools, colleges and businesses.
businesses. Centres should be set up and   Centres should be set up and made
made remotely accessible across the        remotely accessible across Europe in order
Community in order to provide courseware   to provide courseware and training services
and training services for SMEs, large      for SMEs, large companies, education
companies, education systems, and public   systems, and public administrations. New
administrations. New approaches to         approaches       to    general,    academic,
professional training for the Information  professional and language training should
Society should be developed and            be developed and promoted as part of the
promoted.                                  transition towards the information society.
 ---pagebreak--- COMMON POSITION                                   AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                                  (Amendment 20)
Annex 1(1), twelfth indent                        Annex 1(1), twelfth indent
         Cultural and linguistic heritage.                 Cultural and linguistic heritage:
Initiatives should be launched to foster the      Initiatives should be launched to foster the
preservation of and access to the European        preservation of and access to the European
cultural and artistic heritage, and to            cultural and artistic heritage, and to
demonstrate the potential of the                  demonstrate the potential of the
information infrastructure to support the         information infrastructure to stimulate and
development of local content in local             enhance       creative   endeavours     and
languages and its dissemination.                  achievements as well as to encourage local
                                                  content and its dissemination.
                                                  (Amendment 21)
Annex 1(1), thirteenth indent                     Annex 1(1), thirteenth indent
         Citizens' access to services:                     delete
Applications demonstrating the possibilities
of citizens' access to services of collective
interest should be set up. Examples might
include the establishment of kiosks and
access points in public areas, and the use of
smart cards and electronic wallets. For the
benefit of disabled people, special
requirements should be taken into account
in the early stage of the planning of projects
and with regard to access to services.
                                               10
 ---pagebreak--- C O M M O N POSITION                           AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                               (Amendment 23)
Annex 1(2), second indent                      Annex 1(2), second indent
         Progressive extension of the                   Progressive extension of the
generic services towards a multimedia          generic services towards a multimedia
environment. These services will offer          environment. These services will offer
end-users access to multimedia services,        end-users access to multimedia services,
and might cover, but should not be limited      and might cover, but should not be limited
to, multi-media mail, high speed file           to, multimedia mail, high speed file transfer
transfer and video services, including          and video services, including Video-on-
Video-on-Demand.         Use    of   these      Demand. Use of these multimedia services
multimedia services by business and             by business and residential users should be
residential users should be encouraged, as      encouraged, as well as the integration of
well as the integration of new service          new service elements such as machine
elements such as automatic translation,         translation, speech recognition, graphical
speech      recognition,   graphical   user     user interfaces, intelligent agents and tools
interfaces.                                     for user interaction and personalization.
                                                (Amendment 25)
Annex 1(4),fifthindent                          Annex 1(4),fifthindent
         Coordination of the activities                  Coordination between the activities
undertaken under this Decision with related     undertaken under this Decision» related
 Community and national programmes.             Community programmes and similar
                                                national programmes
                                            II
 ---pagebreak--- COMMON POSITION                                   AMENDED PROPOSAL
                                                  (Amendment 27)
Annex II,firstparagraph                           Annex H,firstparagraph
The specification of projects of common           The specification of projects of common
interest among the projects presented by          interest among the projects presented by
interested sector actors in response to a call    interested sector actors in response to a call
for proposals as mentioned in Article 7 is        for proposals as mentioned in Article 7 is
made on the basis of their compliance with        made on the basis of their compliance with
the objectives and priorities laid down in        the objectives and priorities laid down in
Articles 2 and 3 respectively.                    Articles 2 and 3 respectively. These
                                                  projects must be transnational in the sense
                                                  that they shall be conceived to satisfy needs
                                                  in several Member States. This does not
                                                  prevent the initial phase of their
                                                  deployment - designed to check the
                                                  technical and commercial viability of the
                                                  project - from being carried out in a single
                                                  Member State, if it appears that the
                                                  conditions prevailing in that Member State
                                                   are representative of those in the other
                                                   Member States where the project is
                                                   ultimately to be implemented.
                                               12
 ---pagebreak---                                                                   ISSN 0254-1475
                                                            COM(96) 444 final
                                                                     NTS
EN                                                                           15
                                    Catalogue number : CB-CO-96-452-EN-C
                                                             ISBN 92-78-08771-8
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
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