Cyprus taken to Court for breaking EU telecoms rules

The European Commission has decided to refer Cyprus to the European Court of Justice on broadband retail regulation and rights of way respectively.
The Cypriot case involves a failure to properly apply the procedure for granting rights to install facilities for the mobile sector on public property or to adopt additional measures to enable their correct implementation. Cyprus has not replied to the reasoned opinion sent by the Commission in February 2008.
The Commission will send Spain a reasoned opinion (the second stage of an infringement proceeding and the last before the case is submitted to the European Court of Justice) on its mechanism for the designation and financing of providers of universal service.
Under EU Telecoms rules, Member States must make sure that no provider is automatically excluded when designating the providers of universal service. They can also grant these universal service providers compensation for offering these services upon their request and if Member States find that this represents an unfair burden to providers. Spain has to still take legislative measures to settle these issues and has not launched a new designation procedure yet. A letter of formal notice had been sent to Spain in June 2007, but with no avail.
The Commission also could close a case against Finland on "must carry" rules (IP/06/948). Under the EU's Universal Service Directive, network operators can be obliged by national "must carry" rules to transmit specified broadcast channels and services. The Commission found the Finnish legislation inconsistent with the requirements of the EU Telecoms rules, particularly with regards to proportionality and the lack of transparency. Following the adoption of new rules by the Finnish authorities which addressed the Commission’s concerns by decreasing the number of channels and which entered into force on 1 January 2008, the Commission decided to close the case.
A detailed overview of the state of infringement proceedings is available on the implementation and enforcement website of DG Information Society and Media: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/implementation_enforcement/infringement/