Mobile and personal communications

The committee adopted the report by Mr Javier AREITIO TOLEDO (PPE, E) on the draft directive on mobile and personal communications. With regard to the legal basis chosen (Article 90(3)), enabling the Commission to act alone, the report pointed out that this procedure, while providing a justifiable means of eliminating regulatory obstacles to competition, was nevertheless not intended as a substitute for the legislative instruments laid down by the Treaty, particularly Article 100a, for the purpose of defining the operating rules of a given economic sector in the Union As regards the substance, the report incorporated five amendments to the Commission's draft. They related to the conditions for granting licences so as to allow a periodic re-evaluation of the availability of frequencies and to ensure that the liberalisation of the European market did not benefit third countries disproportionately, as well as to the improvement in the transparency and smooth operation of interconnection systems. The report stressed that temporary solutions were not sufficient to prevent differing national rules. If the EU hoped to create a genuine, open and dynamic telecommunications market, it should establish genuine Community instruments to bring together the elements of supply that were still divided, and to benefit as many new technologies as possible. �