CELEX: 51991PC0165
Language: en
Date: 1991-05-23
Title: PROPOSAL FOR A COUNCIL DECISION ON THE HARMONISATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE ACCESS CODE IN THE COMMUNITY

No C 157/6                            Official Journal of the European Communities                                 15. 6. 91
                                                               II
                                                       (Preparatory Acts)
                                                 COMMISSION
              Proposal for a Council Decision on the harmonization of the international telephone access
                                                    code in the Community
                                                        (91/C 157/07)
                                               COM(91) 165 final — SYN 339
                                       (Submitted by the Commission on 23 May 1991)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                           promote the establishment      and   functioning  of   the
                                                                    internal market;
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Economic Community, and in particular Article 100a                 Whereas the European Conference of Post and Tele-
thereof,                                                           communications (CEPT) has recommended in its rec-
                                                                   ommendation T/SF 1 of 1976 the use of the prefix 00 as
                                                                   the standard international telephone access code;
 Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
                                                                   Whereas this recommendation has only been followed by
In cooperation with the European Parliament,                       a limited number of Member States;
                                                                   Whereas for all Member States it will be possible to
Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and
                                                                   devise a plan to make the number 00 available;
Social Committee,
                                                                   Whereas several Member States have already introduced
Whereas the telephone service is the most important tele-
                                                                   the number 00 as the international telephone access code
communications means in the Community and easy
                                                                   or could do it by 1992;
access to international telephone services is vital for
European citizens and European businesses;
                                                                   Whereas, however, for a limited number of Member
                                                                   States this could cause a substantial burden since they
Whereas at present different international telephone               would need to make unplanned changes or to advance
access codes are required in the Member States for                 plans already made; whereas, therefore, flexibility is
access to public telephone services;                               needed in the time schedule for introduction in these
                                                                   Member States;
Whereas this imposes an undue burden with regard to
the use of these services on citizens travelling or working        Whereas the introduction of the number 00 will be
in Member States;                                                  possible by 1998, even in Member States where diffi-
                                                                   culties exist;
Whereas access to telephone services is provided for in
all Member States by law, regulation or administrative             Whereas in those cases interim measures should be
action; whereas continuing divergent developments in               taken, in order to facilitate access to international
access to international telephone services due to different        telephone services in the meantime;
international telephone access codes must be avoided;
                                                                  Whereas specific arrangements for making calls between
Whereas, therefore, the harmonization of the inter-                adjacent locations across borders between Member
national telephone access code in the Community would              States may be established or continued,
 ---pagebreak---   15. 6. 91                            Official Journal of the European Communities                                No C 157/7
 HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:                                       pation of the full implementation of this number as the
                                                                  international telephone access code.
                           Article 1
                                                                  Member States shall ensure that from this date onwards,
 Member States shall ensure that the number 00 is                 subscribers attempting to dial 00 are provided with a
 introduced in public telephone networks as the standard          free-of-charge recorded announcement in an appropriate
 international telephone access code.                             number of Community languages, advising of the
                                                                  specific international telephone access code still in use.
                            Article 2
 The standard international telephone access code shall be                                  Article 5
 introduced by 31 December 1992 at the latest, except as
                                                                  1.    Special dialling arrangements for making calls
 provided for in Article 3.
                                                                  between adjacent locations across borders between
                                                                  Member States may be established or continued.
                           Article 3
 Where particular technical, financial, or organizational         In these cases Member States shall ensure that where the
 difficulties in a Member State make the introduction of          standard international telephone access code is dialled,
 the standard international telephone access code by the          the call is nevertheless correctly routed to its destination
 date laid down in Article 2 impossible, that Member              and that the same tariffs as under these arrangements are
 State shall submit to the Commission the relevant infor-         applied.
 mation.
                                                                  2.    Where particular technical, financial, or organiz-
 The Member State concerned shall communicate to the              ational difficulties make it initially impossible to comply
 Commission, with adequate explanations and justifi-              with paragraph 1, Member States shall inform the
 cation, a new date for the introduction of the standard          Commission and ensure that the necessary changes are
 international telephone access code which, however,              made as quickly as possible.
 shall not be later than 31 December 1998.
                                                                  3.    The telephone subscribers in the locations
                           Article 4                              concerned shall be fully informed of the arrangements.
 Where Member States invoke Article 3, Member States
                                                                                            Article 6
 shall nevertheless ensure that the 00 number range is
 freed from other uses by 31 December 1995, in antici-           This Decision is addressed to the Member States.
                Proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) on the application of the protocols on financial and
               technical cooperation concluded by the Community with non-member Mediterranean countries
                                                       (91/C 157/08)
                                                     COM(91) 184 final
                                       (Submitted by the Commission on 3 June 1991)
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                         Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Economic Community, and in particular Article 235                Having regard        to  the   opinion    of  the   European
thereof,                                                         Parliament,
Having regard to the conclusion of protocols on
financial and technical cooperation between the                  Whereas the protocols provide        for operations financed
European Economic Community and non-member                       from the Community budget           in the form of grants,
Mediterranean countries hereinafter referred to as               special loans, contributions to     the constitution of risk
'protocols',                                                     capital and loans from the          own resources of the