Telecoms package: Parliament and Council to open formal conciliation proceedings

Parliament and Council will hold a first formal meeting of the Conciliation Committee on 4 November. This committee comprises 27 MEPs (from all political groups according to the results of the June 2009 elections) and 27 Council representatives (one per Member State). Its meetings are not open to the public. The committee must agree on a joint text by 30 December.

In recent weeks Parliament's negotiating team - formed by EP Vice-President Alejo VIDAL-QUADRAS (EPP, Spain), rapporteur Catherine Trautmann (S-D, France) and Industry Committee Chair Herbert Reul (EPP, Germany) - have held informal meetings with Swedish Presidency representatives to prepare the conciliation procedure.

Alejo VIDAL-QUADRAS (EPP, Spain) who heads Parliament's Conciliation Committee delegation, said after the last of these meetings on Thursday morning: "We go into the negotiations in a spirit of compromise, but determined to defend users' rights and committed to the development of a regulatory framework that will incentivise investment and open up the market. We will do all we can to achieve a good solution, but Council has to understand that Parliament will defend without hesitation the freedom of the citizens it represents".

"Parliament's delegation has agreed a compromise proposal that will serve as a basis for negotiations and towards which the Council and the Commission will be able to converge", said rapporteur Catherine Trautmann (S-D, France), adding that "this morning's informal trialogue is therefore a promising start to the official phase of conciliation".

"We are now at a stage where we understand each other well", concluded Industry Committee Chair Herbert Reul (EPP, Germany) stressing that "it is important to ensure that in the end everyone can find themselves in the joint text".

Background: Open issue

On 6 October the Council of EU Telecommunications Ministers formally rejected Parliament's second-reading amendment on internet access, which said that "no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities (...) save when public security is threatened".

Next steps

Once the conciliation procedure is formally opened on 4 November, the Conciliation Committee must find an overall agreement in the form of a joint text within six to eight weeks - i.e. by 30 December 2009. Within a further six to eight weeks, both Parliament and the Council must hold their third and last readings approving or rejecting the joint text as a whole without any further amendments: Parliament needs a simple majority of votes cast, whereas the Council decides by qualified majority.

If the Conciliation Committee does not reach an agreement, or if Parliament or Council do not approve the joint text at third reading, the telecom package is deemed not adopted. In this case, the co-decision procedure can be restarted only by a new legislative proposal by the Commission.

A full list of all 27 members of the EP delegation is available at the link below.

EP delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the telecoms package

In the chair: EP Vice-President Alejo VIDAL-QUADRAS (EPP, Spain)