Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-274)
Mr Frank Krüger
27 FEBRUARY 2007
Q260 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
That does not include an averaging retail cap as well.
Mr Krüger: That can be additional.
Q261 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
That would be additional.
Mr Krüger: Yes. As I said, some further
debate is needed. Perhaps also on this we need some external pressure
or influence by Parliament and the Commissioner. The Commission
is not in favour at all and Mr Rübig is not in favour. My
impression is that Muscat is not in favour and half of the Member
States are not in favour of an additional average.
Q262 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
Just leave it to the consumer protection, and opt-in/opt-out.
Mr Krüger: Yes.
Q263 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
That is a long way from the Commissioner.
Mr Krüger: Okay, but they have to go for
compromise as well. She wants to finish it on the First Reading
and she has to accept that there is no broad support for her original
approach. My personal impression is that the Commission guys were
quite lucky when we came up with this consumer protection tariff,
because they thought it might be too harmful to the whole industry
to have a 30 per cent cap. We have already had tariff schemes
for bundles, for roaming, national or roaming only, and this does
not work at all within the cap. This works only with tariffs for
each minute, and that is absolutely not the case. So it would
be very harmful to any innovative tariff schemes. My personal
impression is that the staff members are quite happy with the
proposal, though they would not say so publicly; because, after
a very short period of time, they said, "Oh, yes, that's
a very good proposal. You should have the proposal as a compromise",
and so on.
Q264 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
So why is the Commissioner still promoting the hard line?
Mr Krüger: Because maybe the ITRE Committee
is not on the right track.
Q265 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
The ITRE Committee?
Mr Krüger: Yes, and EPP Group. There are
a lot of members currently not in favour of retail regulation.
My impression, and what I am told, is that at the very end they
will accept a minimum level of retail regulation.
Q266 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
Which would be the consumer protection tariff?
Mr Krüger: Which might be the consumer
protection tariff.
Q267 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
When you are all together in the Council and there are 27 Member
States represented, do you have proportional voting or, on something
like this, does each Member State have the same: just one vote?
Mr Krüger: No, it is not the UN system.
I do not have the list with me, but Germany has four and then
you have UK, Poland, Italy, France, and so on, which have four—
Q268 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
Is it done on population?
Mr Krüger: Yes.
Q269 Chairman: Could we change the subject
and talk about sunrises and sunsets? Do you think the sunrise
proposal—the original proposal coming out, in part, from
the United Kingdom—is not a runner? However, the sunset
proposal after three years, when regulation stops, may attract
support. Does that mean a proper sunset, and therefore new regulations
to be discussed, or is the proposal to give the Commission the
power to review the situation after 18 months and make recommendations
about whether it should simply continue, without having to revisit
the regulations?
Mr Krüger: I think that it is more the
latter one. They have to make a report, provide us with a report
on the developments and propose, if appropriate, an extension
in time or an extension with regard to content, to say, "Okay,
let's regulate in addition the SMS and MMS charges". They
may do an additional impact assessment on this as well. It could
be the case that they say, "Let's maintain it"; but
then we have to decide again, as Parliament and as Council, whether
we support that approach or not.
Q270 Chairman: I think that there is
a difference between the Commission saying, "We think that
the regulation should continue" and it automatically continues,
and the Commission saying, "We think that there should be
an extension" and you have to go through the whole procedure
de novo to issue new regulations.
Mr Krüger: Yes. We clearly noted down,
"Expiry after three years". If there is no further proposal,
it expires. So we have to discuss a new proposal for maintaining
regulation. But that could be the proposal and it would perhaps
be only one paragraph. I do not know. I am not an expert in this.
Q271 Lord Lee of Trafford: Do you
see any prospect of any legal challenge by the mobile phone companies
to the regulations? Is that something you take into account in
your deliberations?
Mr Krüger: Article 95?
Q272 Lord Lee of Trafford: Article
95.
Mr Krüger: Let us wait and see. We cannot
discuss—
Q273 Lord Lee of Trafford: It is
hypothetical?
Mr Krüger: It would be a challenge, but
we fully support the approach of having a regulation. We know
that some enterprises think that it is not in line with Article
95, but it is not a concern in the Member States.
Q274 Baroness Eccles of Moulton:
Presumably the Commission has gone into it quite thoroughly as
to whether it is legal or not.
Mr Krüger: Yes.
Baroness Eccles of Moulton: It would be a waste of
time if it is not.
Chairman: We will now go into informal session.
Perhaps I may now record my thanks for the formal session, and
we will send you a copy of the transcript.
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