The European Union executive is expected to publish plans this week requiring telecoms operators to scrap remaining monopolies on the last mile of telephone lines into people's homes by the end of this year.

A Commission official said the plan was scheduled to be adopted as part of a package of draft legislation on telecommunications when the body meets on Wednesday.

The EU plan is aimed at cutting the cost of Internet access, and forms part of a strategy agreed by the 15-nation bloc's leaders in Lisbon in February to plug Europe's technology gap against the United States and make it more competitive.

The official said that members of the 20-member Commission still had to agree among themselves on the legal form the plans should take - a simple recommendation for action, a directive, which would have to be transposed by parliaments in the 15 EU member-states or a binding regulation.

The EU executive hopes that the plan - which in telecoms jargon is called "unbundling the local loop" - will help promote the take-up of new services such as the digital subscriber line technologies that can hugely increase the capacity of ordinary copper telephone wires.

The Commission has previously cautioned telecoms companies that a failure to open the local loop to competitors could leave them open to attack under EU competition rules.

The Commission will also submit proposals on Wednesday to simplify licensing conditions, give national regulators more flexibility to impose access obligations, ensure consumer protection, and maintain universal service obligations.