Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-10-Speech-1-089"
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"en.20011210.5.1-089"2
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". – Mr President, in the concluding part of this package of directives, the universal service and users' rights directive, for which I have been privileged to be rapporteur, are very much at the cutting edge of the whole package. These are things that will really mean something to all consumers and users of electronic communication services. The common position that we received from the Council was a major advance over the first reading text and I would like to thank the Council and Commission for accepting so many of Parliament's ideas and suggestions. The new text has been substantially restructured and clarified which is important for effective transposal in Member States. As part of that restructuring, the aspects of market intervention contained in this directive – and this is very strong market intervention at a retail price level – are clearly set out. It is worth reminding all of us in this House that these are very much seen as transitional measures towards a fully open market in which competition rules will reign supreme. That is the direction we want to move in.
I would like to pick up on some further enhancements that we have made as a result of the second reading. I would like to thank the Council for working so closely with us and also to thank my colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee who worked very closely with me in making suggestions. I hope that they will be pleased with the results that we have achieved.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the whole essence of this universal service directive is to ensure that a core service is available to both able-bodied and disabled consumers across the single market, and also that the users' rights provisions must ensure that consumers have a right to clear contract terms, to comprehensive transparent pricing information and also a guarantee of other important services. The changes that we have particularly focused on at second reading concern some further important enhancements to the provision for disabled users.
I am pleased to say that at the common position stage, we have a clear indication in a separate article about the importance of Member States providing for disabled users on a wide range of services, in particular ensuring that disabled users have the sort of choice and range of services that all other consumers expect. Those are broad-ranging provisions that will develop as services expand.
The new area – that I am pleased we have introduced, and I would like to thank the Council for accepting this – is to encourage the development of clear quality standards related to disabled user provision. That is something that we have added in at this stage because it seemed to us that it was all very well having some common provisions but unless we have a way of monitoring those and making sure that those evolve with the rest of the range of services involved, then things might just stand still. We will not see disabled users being able to take advantage of new technology and new services in the way we would like them to. This is a very important provision which I am sure will have the support of all colleagues.
The second area that we focused on in second reading was to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises also benefit from the sort of users' rights that are required for individual consumers. In a rapidly developing world, we already know that small- and medium-sized enterprises are a key target for enhanced electronic communications. We want SMEs to really buy into e-commerce, into the new possibilities afforded to them by enhanced electronic communications. They do not necessarily have the negotiating power of larger companies and therefore provision is made for them.
In conclusion, I wish to talk about a third aspect which has involved us in a lot of tough negotiation with the Council, namely over "must carry" obligations which are included within this Directive. These allow Member States to impose obligations to carry public service channels and channels of specific interest on electronic communication systems. Many colleagues felt that there should be a specific extension of this to satellite and conditional access systems.
The Council and Commission have told us that this is already covered fully in the access and interconnection directive, but colleagues have not agreed with that. When it comes to the compromise package that we will vote on I am prepared to recommend to colleagues that we do not support this area but on condition that the Commission assures us that it will continue to keep this under very close scrutiny when it comes to looking at the Television without Frontiers directive and also to encourage the fair access provisions. If we do that, I am sure that we can move forward to approve the whole package in what will be a major advance for the European economy and for Europe's competitiveness."@en1
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