Questions to Commissioner Viviane Reding pertaining to the completion of the digital single market in view of today’s Conciliation Delegation meeting on the Telecoms Package.

Dear Commissioner Reding,

In view of today’s Conciliation Delegation meeting on the Telecoms Package, we would like to ask if you could clarify why the Commission has agreed to take initiative to move the discussion about Amendment 138 from Article 8 to Article 1 of the Framework Directive.

Article 8 is designed to specify the tasks of the national regulatory authorities while Article 1 defines the scope and aim of the whole Framework Directive. It is not immediately clear how a problem in the former can be solved in the latter. Furthermore, we are unable to find any statement from any representative of the Commission which suggests that the scope and aim of the Telecoms Package would have to be fundamentally altered with the apparently sole purpose of ensuring the introduction of national measures allowing for copyright enforcement.

It is, on the other hand, possible to find statements from the Commission pointing in the opposite direction. President Barroso’s Political Guidelines for the Next Commission clearly state “The next Commission will develop a European Digital Agenda (accompanied by a targeted legislative programme) to tackle the main obstacles to a genuine digital single market”. In parallel, your positive intervention at an EDiMA event on 1 October is worthy of note. At that event, you stated that “the Digital Single Market is the oilfield, the source of all the range of services that will lead our economy to a knowledge based, fully digital economy”.

How will completion of the digital single market be achieved if the current Commission adopts rules that contradict this objective? Does the approach currently being adopted with regard to the Telecom Package not risk transforming your oilfield in a minefield?

What good does accepting a patchwork of national measures for the sake of another disruptive attempt to protect rightsholders do for the digital single market? Will this not undermine the role and effectiveness of BEREC, which will have no oversight over these diverging national measures?

We would be obliged if you would find time to answer these questions in writing, but of course the time might just allow for answering them during the discussions tonight. There are a number of perceived problems with Amendment 138. However, the principle remains worth protecting. As a supporter of its ambition, we hope you will facilitate a constructive dialogue in this direction.

Best regards,
Paolo Brini
Spokesperson for Movimento ScambioEtico

http://www.scambioetico.org

Movimento ScambioEtico is an Italian grassroots movement (supported by tens of thousands citizens) informing and campaigning about legislative projects and citizens’ actions related to the development of the information society.