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U.S., EU Officials Discuss Telecom Rules
by William New
Members of the European Parliament focused on Internet and telecommunications issues are in Washington this week to meet with congressional counterparts and Bush administration officials. They will discuss new guidelines adopted last week by the European Commission for market analysis and assessing "significant market power" for electronic communications.
The guidelines will help national regulators define which telecom providers are dominant in a national market. An operator found to have significant power in a market where there is no effective competition would be subject to certain regulatory obligations.
"This was the last step in a process that lasted about a year," said Per Haugaard, a spokesman for Erkki Liikanen, the European Union's enterprise and information society commissioner. "Now [the guidelines] have been adopted."
Up to now, the 15 EU nations have based assessments largely on market share, and rules on dominance left a margin for interpretation, Haugaard said. The new rules ensure coherence among nations, he said.
Incumbent carriers, which are often former state monopolies, will feel the most impact. U.S. firms likely will be affected most through their investments, he said. Liikanen and EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti introduced the guidelines, which were required under the new common regulatory framework for e-commerce.
The trip was the first of the European Internet Foundation to the United States after members of the U.S. Congressional Internet Caucus traveled to Brussels, Belgium. The two sides hope to hold the meetings twice a year, switching the location, with the intention of establishing relationships and better understanding the other's policy "experiments." In the recent meetings, "there was no challenge of the other side of anything," according to a source close to the European delegation.
The delegation also met with Robert Pepper, chief of the FCC's office of plans and policy, who talked about the U.S. government's interest in the recently adopted guidelines on significant market power. And they talked to a Justice Department official about U.S. measures against cyber crime and cyber terrorism. The European Parliament is interested in developing such legislation.
The EU delegation further expressed concern that the United States does not intend to implement a cyber-crime treaty completed last fall. "The Europeans are interested in whether the U.S. is really going to" approve the treaty. They were assured that approval will occur, the source said.
On Monday, the Parliament members met with several administration officials, exchanging views on the issues confronting both sides. With FTC Commissioner Orson Swindle, the EU officials sought to get a better idea of U.S. privacy policy. The EU delegation also met with Commerce Department officials, including: Phil Bond, head of the Technology Administration; Bruce Mehlman, the department's assistant secretary for technology policy; Patty Sefcik, director of the Office of Electronic Commerce; and Nancy Victory, head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
The policymakers also discussed spectrum allocation, comparing notes on whether an auction would be a better approach to selling licenses in the United States. In some European countries, telecom firms have been buried in debt since auctions were held.
In Tuesday roundtables on data privacy and Internet security on Capitol Hill, the two sides, joined by representatives of the private sector, appeared to share a desire to resolve their differences. Caroline King, the director of corporate public affairs at SAP, an e-business solutions firm based in Germany, expressed concern that the bilateral discussions on the issues could be "sidelined altogether because of the focus on security" at the moment.
The European source concurred. "There is a sense that if they don't constantly compare notes, they will diverge paths," he said, adding that while there already are problem areas, such as differences on the retention of data, "nothing has passed the point of no return."
"Obviously, the parliamentarians on both sides of the Atlantic are not finding the right answers," said Parliament member Erika Mann.
Top WTO Panel Meets This Week
The so-called Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) of the World Trade Organization, created to oversee WTO negotiations launched last year in Doha, Qatar, is meeting this week in Geneva. The meeting will be a chance for negotiators from the 144 WTO nations to move to substantive, detailed discussions, according to a release from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Deputy USTR Peter Allgeier and U.S. Ambassador to the WTO Linnet Deily are participating in meetings that address the status of the Doha work agenda and discuss building the ability of developing nations to participate in trade liberalization. They also will hold informal bilateral meetings with individual delegations and coalitions of WTO members, and they will meet with the incoming new WTO director general, Supachai Panitchpakdi.
New Zealand Public Backs U.S. Trade Talks
The vast majority of New Zealanders support their government's wish to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States, a new online poll shows.
The poll conducted by the Trade Liberalization Network and circulated by the New Zealand government showed support for trade agreements generally. Ninety-four percent backed a trade deal with the United States, 80 percent with Hong Kong and 70 percent with countries with lower wage rates than New Zealand.
Looking at the WTO, 71 percent saw value in the body's dispute-settlement system, but 24 percent answered "don't know" when asked whether the Uruguay round of trade negotiations, which created the WTO in 1995, had benefited the economy.
United States To Build Afghani Internet Center
The U.S. government has agreed to provide an Internet center to Afghanistan for its private sector to sell products and services worldwide through e-commerce, according to a State Department release. On Saturday, officials from the two nations signed an agreement to provide the Afghani Commerce ministry with Internet connectivity and computer terminals.
Afghan Commerce Minister Mustafa Kazemi plans to visit the United States on July 24-25, during which he hopes to encourage closer ties between Afghan and U.S. businesses. He also will push for the establishment of a sales distribution center for Afghan goods in the United States.
In other news, AT&T Latin America has signed a contract with Hewlett Packard to provide international data services connecting HP offices in Chile with the United States, AT&T Latin America announced this week. The firm's data service is designed to exchange large volumes of voice, data and image traffic. The two companies already have relationships in Peru and Brazil.
Study: Lithuania Is Key To European Security
Lithuania is a nation of high importance for European security, a fact that also gives the United States a stake in country's well-being, according to a new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The country forms a link between northern and southern Europe, as well as between western Europe and Russia. Lithuania regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990 and is trying to join the European Union and NATO. The country is working to make its military interoperable with NATO forces.
In order to become more secure, Lithuania is seeking to gain sovereignty, modernize its economy and build protection for civil liberties, the study said. The Baltic Sea region has a highly skilled labor pool, with a "high-tech orientation," the report said.
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