Commissioner Viviane Reding sent a letter today (December 18) to the Italian Telecoms regulator AGCOM, reminding AGCOM of its duty, under European Community law, to formally and completely notify the measures concerning Telecom Italia to the Commission and to the national telecoms regulators of the 26 other EU Member States. Asking AGCOM not to put into effect the measure before the Commission has formally given its views on the measures.

Commissioner Reding wants to ensure that important measures such as the one currently envisaged in Italy (commitments accepted by the regulator to re-organise the telecoms incumbent) comply fully with European law, because only then can there be legal certainty for all market players concerned.

 On December 11 the Italian regulator had informed the Commissioner, by e-mail, about the measure decided, but at the same time had declared that it wanted to put the measure in effect on January 1, 2009.

Under European law, the Commission and other national regulators have at least 30 days to analyse such a measure, and only thereafter it can be implemented.

The Italian regulator AGCOM finally approved a 10 percent cut in mobile termination rates for Italian mobile operators by 2011 in late November. In a move aligned with EU Commission’s requests, which calls for higher competition in Italian mobile market and provide increasing benefits in terms of decreasing consumer prices.

Under the new tariff plan, Italy will lower the 2011 rates to USD 0.068 for Telecom Italia’s Tim, Vodafone Italia and Wind, from USD 0.114 for the first two operators and USD 0.123 for the third; and to USD 0.0815 for H3G’s 3 Italia from USD 0.168 currently. Agcom anticipates that this will achieve a full symmetry in termination rates by 2012 at USD 0.058.