European Commission: Further Enforcement Action Concerning Electronic Communications Framework

IRIS 2004-2:1/6

Nirmala Sitompoel

Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam

In December 2003, the European Commission followed up on the infringement proceedings against those Member States that have still not complied with their obligations to transpose the provisions of the new regulatory framework for electronic communications into their national legislation (see IRIS 2003-10: 5), by sending Reasoned Opinions to those Member States. The infringement proceeding against Spain has been closed, as Spain has now notified the Commission of its transposition measures. Those Member States that will not comply with their notification requirements within two months will be referred to the European Court of Justice.

The Commission also launched infringement proceedings against Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden for failure to notify transposition measures in relation to the e-Privacy Directive (2002/58/EC). This directive should have been incorporated into national law by 31 October 2003.

In its Ninth Report on the Implementation of the EU Electronic Communications Regulatory Package the Commission stressed the importance of full, effective and timely transposition of the EU legislation in each country for the proper functioning of the single market as a whole.


References


  • Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, European Electronic Communications Regulation and Markets 2003, "Report on the Implementation of the EU Electronic Communications Regulatory Package", COM (2003) 715 final, 19 November 2003
  • http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52003DC0715:EN:HTML

This article has been published in IRIS Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory.