Telecom officials meet with EU counterparts
Representatives from the Telecommunications Regulatory Office (URT) met with European Commission (EC) officials last week to answer questions the body had raised about the compatibility of Polands telecom law with the European Unions (EU) directive.
The EC, the policy arm of the EU, sent a 26-page document to officials earlier this month in which it raised questions about, and requested clarification of, specific areas of the countrys telecom law, which has been in effect since Jan. 1.
According to local news reports, Brussels also raised concerns about the dominant position of Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA), the countrys telecom monopolist whose interests are protected by the government. The EC also questioned regulations regarding prices for fixed-line phone services and the conditions under which the Polish government could place restrictions on the telecom market for state security reasons.
URT Vice President Marek Rusin, who attended the Brussels meeting, said Polands telecom law would have to be amended to meet EU standards before Jan. 1, 2003, according to a local press report. Officials at the URT, Polands telecom regulatory body, could not be reached for further comment.
Nevertheless, Brussels has not considered reopening Polands chapter on telecommunications in light of the current inquiry, according to Richard Harris, an EC official who specializes in EU telecom compliance within Central Europe. Harris, who was not available for additional comments last week, said in recent e-mail correspondence that the process was nothing out of the ordinary and had been done with at least three other EU candidate countries. He added that reopening Polands telecommunications chapter would be necessary at some point in the future, however, since the EU was in the process of changing its own telecom directives.
