Telecommunications Council

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

The Telecommunications Council was held in Brussels on 20 December 2012 under the Cypriot Presidency. The Deputy UK Permanent Representative, Shan Morgan, represented the UK at this Council.

There were only two substantive items on the agenda. The first item was a progress report from the presidency, followed by an orientation debate (an exchange of views steered by the questions from the presidency) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market. (EM10977/12)

The UK intervention highlighted concerns with regard to the complexity of the proposal especially in respect of the current number of delegated and implementing Acts. The UK believed that there is a need to agree to clearer definitions of many of the terms used in the draft text. We also expressed concern regarding the reference to member state liability for electronic identification schemes. Finally, we suggested that while we support the aim of making cross-border transactions easier, we questioned whether harmonised assurance levels were the best way forward.

The majority of other member states, however, did favour minimum harmonised assurance levels for electronic identification. Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Malta and France also suggested that reciprocal assurance levels would be appropriate. A number of delegations said that security levels should be set out in the proposed by the legislation. Many member states supported the UK’s concern about the misuse of delegated Acts.

The second substantive item was a full “tour de table” debate guided by two questions from the presidency on the priorities for the Digital Agenda for Europe. (DAE -EM9981/10)

Commissioner Kroes (Commissioner for the DAE) opened the debate by introducing the review of the DAE (published on 19 December). She highlighted that her number one priority for the DAE going forward were measures to increase investment in broadband across the EU 27. To facilitate this investment, the Commission will publish later this year a recommendation on costing and non-discrimination for broadband access and a proposal for a regulation to help cut the cost of civil works. She also asked member states to be more supportive of the connecting Europe facility proposal; especially the financial instruments which could help leverage increased private sector funding for broadband investment.

The presidency then invited member states to provide an assessment of the progress made on the current digital agenda priorities and to identify where future work on the digital single market should be focused.

The UK intervention highlighted the progress we have made nationally on broadband roll-out, especially in connection with funding for broadband roll-out in cities (super-connected cities programme). We also noted that any future European assistance on infrastructure should avoid a standardised approach. We then identified our three priorities for future work to maximise growth in the digital single market: removing barriers to investment in broadband investment; achieving an appropriate balance between consumer confidence and costs to business in the draft data protection package; and modernising the copyright framework to ensure it is fit for the digital age.

The Netherlands, Finland, Lithuania, Poland agreed with the UK that one of the priorities is to modernise the copyright framework. However, France urged caution on copyright reform, arguing that content creators must be properly remunerated. Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic highlighted the need for a framework for cloud computing. Slovenia and Estonia called for EU grants for broadband.

The presidency then provided progress reports on a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending directive 2003/98/EC on the reuse of public sector information (PSI), a proposal for a directive on guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks (EM 16006/11) and proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA -EM 14358/10).

All of these items were noted by Council without intervention.

Any Other Business

There were only two items under AOB. We did not intervene on either of them. The first was a presentation by the Commission on a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the accessibility of public sector bodies’ websites, which was published on 4 December 2012.

Finally the Irish delegation informed the Council of their priorities for their forthcoming presidency.