Update 25 November 2011: On 24 Nov 2011, the European Commission sent ‘reasoned opinions’ to 16 out of the 27 EU Member States, indicating failure of these Member States to fully bring into effect the provisions of Directives 2009/136/EC and 2009/140/EC.

A ‘reasoned opinion’ is a second important step (following a ‘letter of formal notice’) in (potential) escalation towards legal action to be initiated by the European Commission against the Member States in front of the European Court of Justice.

The Member States affected by the ‘reasoned opinions’ are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.

The European Commission’s press release announcing the ‘reasoned opinions’ is accessible via http://tre.gs/w.

It will be seen that the list of 16 allegedly infringing Member States is long, and perhaps longer than would be suggested by the tracker provided by T-REGS in the repeated updates of this news item. This is explained by the fact that the European Commission checks whether every single provision of the directives has been correctly brought into effect by the Member States (which certainly will be a matter of contention in several cases), whereas we have focused on flagging developments as and when Member States took material actions to transpose the core of the 2009 Telecoms Package. Also, we have focused on the telecom-specific aspects, not on e-Privacy, which is also affected by the 2009 Telecoms Package. 

The European Commission’s press release also indicates that it has concluded to its satisfaction that Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the Slovak Republic have notified full implementation.

Please also refer to the update of this news item dated 19 July 2011, in which we reported that the European Commission had sent ‘letters of formal notice’ to 20 out of the 27 EU Member States.


Update 28 October 2011: The German Bundestag has voted the transposition measures on 27 October 2011 (Gesetzentwurf der Bundesregierung zur Änderung telekommunikationsrechtlicher Regelungen), including the modifications adopted by the parliamentary commission. The full text as voted (right column shows the additions/deletions made by the parliamentary commission to the government’s bill shown in the left column) is available at http://tre.gs/delaw1. The amended text has not yet been published in the Bundesanzeiger. We will amend this entry once the legislation is published and brought into effect.


Updates 21 October 2011 and 21 November 2011: The Austrian Parliament has voted the transposition measures on 19 October 2011 (amendment of Telecommunications Act 2003, KommAustria Act and Consumer Protection bodies Co-operation Act), and the Acts have published on 21 Nov 2011. The full text as voted is available at http://tre.gs/at1
and a consolidated text is available at: http://www.rtr.at/de/tk/TKG2003


Update 14 September 2011: Portugal has published transposition measures in the Diário da República of 13 September 2011, coming into effect on 14 September 2011. The full text is available at http://tre.gs/pt1


Update 26 August 2011: France published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 26 August 2011. The full text of the ‘Ordonnance’ is available on Légifrance.


Update 3 August 2011: Hungary – 2011 amendment electronic communications law into effect as of 20 July 2011.


Update 2 August 2011: Lithuania has now also published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 1 August 2011. The legislation was published on 28 July 2011 and is available by clicking this link. A consolidated text is available at http://tre.gs/lt1


Update 19 July 2011: The European Commission today sent ‘letters of formal notice’ to 20 out of 27 EU
Member States, putting them on notice for failing to transpose Directives 2009/136/EC and
2009/140/EC into national implementation measures
(legislation, regulations and/or administrative provisions). This represents the first stage of infringement proceedings. The Member States have two months to respond. According to the European
Commission’s press release issued today, only Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
Ireland, Malta, Sweden and the UK have notified the Commission that
they have implemented the Directives in full, whilst ‘a majority of them
have informed the Commission of some implementation measures’.


Update 19 July 2011: Malta has now also published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 12 July 2011:

http://goo.gl/z421h (core Act; other text e.g. on numbering publised separately on 12 July 2011, and data protection etc. on 24 June 2011 and 14 June 2011)


Update 3 July 2011:
Ireland has now also published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 1 July 2011:

http://goo.gl/X8pDC


Update 1 July 2011: Sweden has now also published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 1 July 2011:

http://www.riksdagen.se/webbnav/index.aspx?nid=3911&bet=2003:389


Update 8 June 2011: Latvia has now also published and brought transposition measures into effect as of 8 June 2011:

http://www.likumi.lv/doc.php?id=231232

Finland had in fact adoped measures which came into effect on 25 May 2011 – this has been corrected in the list below.


Today, 25 May 2011, is the deadline for EU Member States to publish the national law, regulations and/or administrative provisions they have adopted on the basis of the provisions of the Citizens’ Rights Directive (2009/136/EC) and the Better Regulation Directive (Directive 2009/140/EC).

These 2009 directives amend five
existing EU Directives which constitute the core of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications (Framework Directive 2002/21/EC), Access Directive, (2002/19/EC),
Authorisation Directive (2002/20/EC), Universal Service Directive (2002/22/EC) and the e-Privacy
Directive (2002/58/EC). The consolidated text of the 2002 directives, as amended by the 2009 directives, can be downloaded by clicking here.

T-REGS has conducted an informal check on whether the individual EU Member States have published measures (national legislation, regulations and/or administrative provisions) to meet the deadline set by the 2009 directives. This check may be incomplete; we will be happy to correct the list provided below if new information reaches us.

The test used for this check is the effective publication of measures the stated aim of which is to transpose the 2009 directives, i.e. the list provided below does not include advanced parliamentary proceedings (e.g. legislation was voted in the Swedish Riskdag on 18 May 2011 but has not yet been published), partial parliamentary proceedings (e.g. legislation was voted in the French Assemblée Nationale and Senate and published on 22 March 2011 empowering the Government to transpose by means of an ‘Ordonnance’, which itself has not yet been published), and other advanced processes (which are ongoing in many Member States). The list provided below also does not express any view on the completeness or correctness of the transposition measures.

Austria: NO
Belgium: NO
Bulgaria: NO
Cyprus: NO
Czech Republic: NO
Denmark: YES
https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=136073
Estonia: YES
https://www.riigiteataja.ee/akt/123032011010?leiaKehtiv
Finland: YES
http://goo.gl/9PluE
France: NO
Germany: NO

Greece: NO
Hungary: NO
Ireland: NO
Italy: NO
Latvia: NO
Lithuania: NO
Luxembourg: YES
http://www.legilux.public.lu/leg/a/archives/2011/0043/index.html
Malta: NO
Netherlands: NO
Poland: NO
Portugal: NO
Romania: NO
Slovak Republic: NO
Slovenia: NO
Spain: YES
http://www.mityc.es/telecomunicaciones/es-ES/Legislacion/LegilacionMaterias/basica/2011/RD726_2011.pdf
Sweden: NO – text voted in parliament on 18 May 2011 – http://www.riksdagen.se/Webbnav/index.aspx?nid=3120&doktyp=betankande&bet=2010/11:TU20
UK: YES
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2011/1210/introduction/made
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/consultations/gc-usc/statement/Statement.pdf  

For a
discussion of this T-REGS news item, please feel free to contact Yves Blondeel.