Project team PT6 of the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) met for the first time in Paris on 2 December.
The decision to set up the PT6 temporary working group was made at the last ECC meeting, held in Denmark on 13-17 October. PT6 was charged with studying strategic issues at ECC level, producing a set of recommendations, developing policy to apply that strategy via ECC decisions and also to prepare, in conformity, a proposal to revise the RoPs (Rules of Procedure) and WMs (Working Methods).
This PT, which is headed by Malcolm Johnson of the United Kingdom, must present results at the ECC meeting in March 2004. To do so, besides this first meeting, PT6 should also meet to conclude its mandate on 10 February in Copenhagen.
The meeting produced a set of possible recommendations that will be circulated for comment among ECC members, namely:
- Development of a new Decision, besides being supported by at least three members, should result from top-down approximation, as opposed to the bottom-up approach that has lately been followed.
- In order to maintain a Decision's credibility, instead of developing a Decision whenever there is an opportunity to do so, they should only be developed when necessary, i.e., when there is need for harmonisation in a given area.
- As with the final adoption of a decision, its approval for public consultation should be subject to a decision-making process identical to that of final approval.
- With the consideration that the decision-making process for final adoption of an ECC decision is too complex, as it included three phases and also depends on agreement of a given number of European Union member-States (a number that will likely be altered with the coming enlargement), the participants agreed that the decision-making process should simply envisage two phases: a first attempt at consensus and, should this not be possible, a vote in which the Decision will be adopted if it earns more than 75 percent of the weighted votes - the Commission will be consulted to ensure no problems arise from withdrawal of the RoPs existing dependency in the current text with regard to the number of member-States that may or may not be in favour of such approval.
- The group aims to propose that Recommendation proposals also be subject to public consultation, instead of the current simple consultation of administrations. The groups also intends to propose that the report proposals planned for reference in future Decisions should be subject to consultation with the administrations.
- The difference between a 'committed' administration vis-à-vis a Decision (indicating merely the intention to implement a Decision, but in a phase in which measures must still be adopted at internal level prior to said implementation) and having it already effectively implemented should be maintained.
- The procedure envisaged in the RoPs, according to which after the plenary session that sees a Decision adopted the ECC chairperson, by intermediary of the European Radiocommunications Office (ERO), asks administrations by e-mail to indicate whether they intend to implement the Decision in question (indication of commitment) should be reactivated. This intention should not be limited to a mere affirmative or negative response, but should rather indicate the deadlines involved in that implementation and the measures being taken. Should the response be negative, the reasons that block implementation of the Decision should be indicated.
- The possibility of partial implementation of a Decision should not be admitted, maintaining only the current two possibilities: implemented or not implemented decision, for each of the administrations. Special care should nevertheless be taken so that the text is flexible enough to accommodate potential partial implementations (this question of flexibility aims to resolve the problem raised by Portugal and the Netherlands, who recalled that no admission of the possibility of partial implementation implies the risk that statistics involving the simple counting of the number of administrations that do or do not implement ECC Decisions may provide an erroneous perception of the effective implementation level, given that if it is not possible to fully adopt a Decision, such situation is typically be held to be a 'no'. To get around this situation, it was recommended that an effort should be made during the editing process to make the text flexible in order to include situations of partial implementation as 'yes', as happens, for example, in the Decision on TETRA systems). Information should simultaneously be provided on that implementation.
- Regarding the possibility of including in Decisions a date by which they should be implemented, the majority concluded that there was merit in the proposal. However, to prevent that date from becoming an obstacle to adoption of Decisions, it should simply be indicative. When indication of a precise date is vital, such as the case of some decisions on IMT-2000, some provisions should be included that allow derogation of that obligation in certain circumstances.
- In the case of Decisions where it is necessary to mention a given standard due to questions of efficiency in spectrum use, but taking into account that consonance will have to be assured with the principle of technological neutrality that oversees the new community regulatory package for electronic communications, agreement was reached on the use of a uniform text to be integrated in those Decisions (text slightly modified vis-à-vis those being used by the working groups on Frequency Management and Radio Regulation - WGs FM and RR). This text should now be used by all the ECC groups:
- 'that the equipment referred to in this ECC Decision should comply with the relevant European Telecommunication Standard xxx or equivalent technical specifications.'
- As a consequence of the ETSI suggestion to implement at CEPT a new deliverable designated by Interim Decision, whose goal would be to allow market placement of new technologies in a phase in which that system is still undergoing trials, the group held that the model for ECC Decisions would not be the most appropriate for this situation and would jeopardise the instrument's credibility, which is meant to be as stable as possible. Alternatively, and taking into account that various administrations already envisage the possibility of granting temporary licences to test a given system, it was held that there was merit in being able, for a given system, to encourage granting such a licence simultaneously throughout Europe. A way to do so may involve institution of a specific ECC Test and Development Recommendation.
Lastly, the group chair is to prepare a proposal to revise the ECC's RoPs and WMs, which will be studied by PT6 at its next meeting.
