Flesch (ELDR) rapporteur. – (FR) Mr President, Parliament used the enhanced Hughes procedure to approach this proposal for a regulation. In other words, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has collaborated very closely with the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. I would like to give my heartiest thanks to my fellow Member, Mrs McCarthy, who was the draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and with whom I was able to work in a particularly pleasant and, I hope, effective manner. I would also like to thank the services of Parliament and the Commission, which gave me a great deal of assistance in this matter.

The proposal for a regulation provides for the implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain ‘.EU’, and the European Union should thus assert its visibility in cyberspace as an individual site but also one that complements the national domains, and transpose the trusted environment which the EU has created via the internal market onto the Internet.

Generally speaking, I think I can say that the philosophy of the proposal for a Commission regulation has not been damaged by the amendments proposed by the Committee on Industry and the Committee on Legal Affairs. Mr President, I believe that the parliamentary committees are proposing amendments that will make the text of the regulation more accurate and clear in relation to the demands of businesses using these services and service providers.

As for the general principles, the amendments highlight the desired objective of creating the image of a high-quality brand for the ‘.EU’ domain and they confirm the principles of non-interference, self-management and self-regulation for Internet management, which Parliament regularly advocates. They also make it compulsory for the Registry to manage the ‘.EU’ domain name in the general interest, to observe transparent and non-discriminatory procedures and to conform to best national practices.

The amendments also stipulate that when the regulation is implemented, the principles relating to privacy and the protection of personal data must be taken into account. More specifically, the Parliamentary committees are proposing that the scope of the regulation should be limited to the European Community. In order to designate the registry, a call for expression of interest will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities; and the difference between registry and registration office, as well as their independence from one another, will be highlighted.

As a general rule, registrations will be done on a first-come, first-served basis, but a so-called ‘sunrise’ clause has nonetheless been put in place to enable the temporary protection of the rights of former right holders. A policy and procedure designed to revoke rather than prevent speculative and abusive registration of domain names will be adopted; lastly, the Member States will be able to prevent the registration under the ‘.EU’ domain of domain names containing established geographical, geopolitical or historical concepts which impact upon the territorial organisation of a Member State.

The guidelines approved by the Council on 27 June 2001 – in other words, very recently – do not appear to be very far removed from the text that I am proposing for Parliament to vote on, so it should be possible to overcome the difficulties between the institutions. Admittedly, there are still some difficult discussions ahead, but I feel that we should be optimistic and believe that a common position can be established in the coming months.

In conclusion, Mr President, I would therefore ask Parliament and you yourself to adopt the report with the proposed amendments.