Minister of Education and Communications Krista Kiuru participated on 27 November 2014 in the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting held by the European Union, in which the content of the regulation concerning the electronic communications-based internal market was discussed. The goal of the regulation is to create an internal European telecommunications market.
"A pan-European telecommunications market in which there are integrated and reasonable online roaming charges and regulation ensuring Internet freedom sounds good. Unfortunately, the Commission's original proposal contained many suggestions whose pan-European and national impacts have not been adequately assessed," Minister Kiuru states.
"Although we favour the aspirations to reduce roaming charges whilst travelling within the EU area, we can't do this at the expense of Finnish consumers and enterprises. The threat to the proposal has been that domestic phone and broadband charges would rise. I'm glad that through our active effort we got the European Commission to continue preparations on the basis of the member nations' amendment suggestions."
The instances where Finland addressed the meeting played a decisive role in deciding that the proposal is not yet ripe for decision-making: rather, it still requires more work before it can be finalized together with the European Parliament.
"If the legislation is prepared carelessly and in secret, it will lead to a poor final result which is impossible to justify to consumers and companies working in the field. This sort of activity also reduces the credibility of the EU's legislative work," Minister Kiuru observes.
For further information, please contact:
Senior Adviser, Director of Unit Olli-Pekka Rantala, 0295 34 2585
