This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Telekompaket: alle Seiten bereiten sich auf die letzte Schlacht vor
Preparations are being made in the EU institutions for the expected third reading of the Telecom Package. The timescale for the remainder of the legislative process will be determined by the official communication of the Council Common Positions to the Parliament. In theory, this can happen as late as mid-October, meaning that the final agreement could happen as late as the end of November or early December.
In the absence of official finalised documents from the Council, work on the dossier is focusing at the moment on procedural aspects of the negotiations. The negotiation takes place between representatives of the 27 Member States and 27 Members of the European Parliament (with the balance between political groups in the Parliament overall reflected in the political allegiances of the 27 MEPs). Representatives of EU Member States have informally stated that they believe that Amendment 138 is the only controversial issue and a significant number of Council Members wish to restrict discussions to this issue.
Without new information from the Council, discussions in the European Parliament's Industry Committee on 2 September 2009 generated far more heat than light. Catherine Trautmann (S&D, France) proposed moving the debate forward by suggesting that the incoming Commissioner be asked to start work on net neutrality from scratch. Pilar Del Castillo (EPP, Spain) (rapporteur for the creation of a European Communications Market Authority) lamented the lack of communication from the Council and the fact that so much effort had achieved so little for the citizens of Europe.
A hearing organised by the Green Group in the European Parliament produced a general discussion on issues related to copyright and net neutrality. In the absence of clarity regarding what specifically will be in the Council texts and insight into what issues may be subject to renewed debate in conciliation, no discussion on the detail of the telecom packet was possible.
As regards the procedure that will be followed, while the range of options for tabling amendments is greatly restricted for the second reading, these restrictions are eased in the current conciliation phase. In reality however, it is more a question of what unravels when a particular thread is pulled. For example, if the famous Amendment 138 is adopted, negotiators might argue that it is appropriate to fix the related text.
The Member States can be expected to push for as much of the Common Position as possible to be retained and to push again for the "compromise" that was agreed with the Parliament negotiators on Amendment 138 in the first reading (but not adopted).
Telecom Package seminar (7.09.2009)
http://euwiki.org/index.php/Telecoms_Package/September_7_Seminar
EDRi-gram: The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by
the EP (17.06.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.12/telecom-ministers-reject-pack...
EDRi-gram: European Parliament votes against the 3 strikes. Again
(6.05.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/ep-plenary-votes-against-3-str...
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)