Telecommunications services, use of cable television networks

Adopting the report by Mr Herman, the European Parliament welcomed the content of the Commission draft. However, the European Parliament warned the Commission against the tendency to underestimate the importance of public service functions and the constraints attached to them and called on it to define the concept of public service quickly. It was against unilateral liberalization which would only affect the telecommunications sector by giving cable operators an unfair competitive advantage. The European Parliament also proposed that the reciprocal liberalization of audiovisual broadcasts via telephone lines should not be authorized until 2000, rather than in 1998 as initially planned.�