51997PC0480

Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 97/33/EC with regard to operator number portability and carrier preselection (97/C 330/07) (Text with EEA relevance) COM(97) 480 final - 97/0250(COD)

(Submitted by the Commission on 3 October 1997)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community and in particular Article 100a thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee,

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 189b of the Treaty,

Whereas the Commission has organized a broad public consultation on the basis of a Green Paper on a numbering policy for telecommunications services in Europe (1);

Whereas this consultation has underlined the importance of equal quantitative and qualitative access to numbering resources for all market players, and the crucial significance of adequate numbering mechanisms, in particular for number portability and carrier selection, as key facilitators of consumer choice and effective competition in a liberalized telecommunications environment;

Whereas the Council adopted a resolution on 22 September 1997 inviting the Commission to submit proposals to the European Parliament and to the Council regarding the accelerated introduction of number portability and regarding the introduction of carrier preselection;

Whereas the European Parliament adopted a resolution on 17 July 1997 calling on the Commission to submit a proposal for an amendment to an already existing Directive for introducing carrier preselection and number portability no later than 1 January 2000 throughout the Union,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:

Article 1

Directive 97/33/EC (2) is hereby amended as follows:

1. Article 12 (5) shall be replaced by the following:

'5. National regulatory authorities shall encourage the earliest possible introduction of number portability whereby end-users who so request can retain their number(s) on the fixed public telephone network at a specific location independent of the organization providing service, and shall ensure that this facility is available by 1 January 2000 at the latest.`

2. A new paragraph shall be inserted after paragraph 6 of Article 12:

'7. National regulatory authorities shall require organizations operating public telecommunications networks as set out in part 1 of Annex I and notified by national regulatory authorities as organizations having significant market power, to enable their subscribers to access the switched services of any interconnected provider of publicly available telecommunications services. For this purpose facilities shall be in place by 1 January 2000 at the latest, which allow the subscriber to choose these services by means of permanent preselection with a facility to override the preselected choice on a call-by-call basis by dialling a short prefix.`

Article 2

1. Member States shall take the measures necessary to comply with this Directive before 31 December 1998. They shall forthwith inform the Commission thereof. When Member States adopt these measures they shall contain a reference to this Directive or shall be accompanied by such reference on the occasion of their official publication. The methods of making such reference shall be laid down by the Member States.

2. Member States shall inform the Commission of the main provisions of national law which they adopt in the field governed by this Directive.

Article 3

This Directive shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Community.

Article 4

This Directive is addressed to the Member States.

(1) COM(96) 590 final, of 20 November 1996.

(2) Directive 97/33/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 June 1997 on interconnection in telecommunications with regard to ensuring universal service and interoperability through application of the principles of open network provision (ONP) (OJ L 199, 26. 7. 1997, p. 32).