EU set to relent on telecoms authority

THE EUROPEAN Commission has signalled it will back down from its push to create a new European telecoms authority in the face of united opposition from European Union governments.

EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding has proposed a package of measures to update the union's telecoms rules in order to drive competition, increase investment and bring down prices for customers.

Included is a plan for a new European communications authority to replace the current European regulators' group made up of national watchdogs from each member state - an arrangement Ms Reding says is inadequate. "From the very beginning, member states had many misgivings about setting up such an authority," said Andrej Vizjak, economy minister of Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency. "Many feel the existing structures should be upgraded," Mr Vizjak told a meeting of EU telecoms ministers.

EU states and the European Parliament have the final say on the reform, and lawmakers are also opposed to the idea of a new body. Parliament has put forward an alternative body of European regulators in telecoms, dubbed Bert.

EU states and lawmakers additionally oppose giving a new telecoms body greater powers over how to allocate freed-up radio frequencies or spectrum on a European basis. They are also against folding in the operations of the EU's internet security body, Enisa, into the new entity.

"I am looking at these different approaches with an open mind," Ms Reding told the meeting. EU states also lined up to oppose Ms Reding's plan for the commission to have a veto over national regulatory measures to boost competition that it deemed insufficient. Ms Reding said the veto was not a "blank cheque for the commission".