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This June, the Spanish Government presented a new Bill on Telecommunications. The Bill is due to substitute the 1987 Ley de Ordenación de las Telecomunicaciones (LOT), in order to comply with the requirements of EC Telecommunications law. The Bill only deals with telecommunications (liberalisation and free competition in telecommunications market; interconnection of networks; numbering policy; telecommunications public service; privacy of data in telecommunications networks; sanctions; telecommunication authorities...). The Bill expressely establishes that radio and TV broadcasting are excluded...

The Spanish Government has changed the Law 17/1997, of 3 May 1997, by which the EC Directive 95/47 on the use of standards for the transmission of television signals (see IRIS 1996-2: 5) had been incorporated in Spanish law. Two articles of this Law 17/1997 created a strong controversy, widely discussed in Spain: - Art. 7.a) of Law 17/1997established that all decoders should be open, and that the operators using simulcrypt decoders (like Canal Satelite, the only channel operating at that time) had to reach an agreement with the other operators so that all programs could be received with a single...

On 3 July 1997 a new law relating to the broadcasting of sports and other events of national interest was adopted in Spain. This controversial law regulates the access of the media to sport stadiums, and establishes that a special Television Commission will be entrusted with the task of deciding which events are to be considered of national interest. These events cannot be broadcast on a pay-per-view basis. The new rules have been contested by Audiovisual Sport, a society formed by Sogecable (part of the PRISA group), Antena Tres en TV3 Catalonia. Audiovisual Sport owns all the exclusive television...

In IRIS 1997-5: 12, we reported on the Spanish Real Decreto-Ley (Royal decree) 6/1996 on the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector. This Royal Decree was replaced on 24 April 1997 by Law 12/1997 concerning the liberalisation of telecommunications. The reason for the replacement of the Royal Decree by this new law is a formal one. A Royal Decree is a Statute adopted by the Government (which is only possible in the case where there is an extreme and urgent need) which directly has force of law but needs to be approved by the Parliament within 30 days of its adoption by the Government. Parliament...

The European Commission, by means of its Commissioner who is responsible for the Internal Market, Mr Mario Monti, has expressed its intention to begin an infringement proceeding against Spain. The Commission considers that Law 17/1997 (the Digital Television Act - see IRIS 1997-2: 10, IRIS 1997-4: 14 and IRIS 1997-5: 12) infringes the provisions in the EC Treaty concerning the Internal Market. The controversial provision of the Spanish law stipulates that the use of multicrypt decoders will be imposed in the case where the two existing digital satellite television broadcasters (Canal Satélite and...