Eight EU member states accused of infringing ‘eEurope’ directive

The European Commission (EC) has said that it will be launching infringement proceedings against the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece, Spain, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal for their failure to implement the first stages of its new European framework for electronic communication. The ‘eEurope’ protocol, established in March 2002 by the European parliament, Telecoms Council and representatives from the EU member states, is geared towards achieving competitive local access for broadband internet services as cheaply as possible on a sustainable basis. Under the EC guidelines, by 24 July 2003 member states were required to have transposed into national law the principal directives of the new regulations. However, by the end of last week only seven member states had taken the necessary action to implement the Framework Authorisations, Access and Universal Service directives; these were the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland and Sweden. The eight states against which proceedings have been launched have two months to respond to the Commission’s concerns.