Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda, has issued an urgent call to twenty one EU countries to rapidly introduce all the legislative measures necessary to allow the pan-EU deployment of mobile satellite services that could be used for high-speed internet, mobile television and radio or emergency communications to EU consumers and businesses.

According to the timetable agreed by a Decision of the European Parliament and the EU's Council of Ministers in 2008, Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) should be deployed in all EU Member States by May 2011 at the latest. But, more than twenty months after the Commission selected two operators to provide such pan-European services, 21 Member States have not yet adopted all the national rules needed to facilitate MSS deployment.

The twenty one Member States are Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and the United Kingdom. This states have not yet put in place all the necessary legislative measures to allow Inmarsat Ventures Limited and Solaris Mobile Limited, the two operators selected in May 2009 to provide pan-European mobile satellite services, to offer mobile satellite services from May 2011.

In order to solve this situation as soon as possible, the European Commission sent on 17 February letters to the twenty one Member States in question urging them to remove remaining legal uncertainties, such as licence fees, and to put in place all necessary implementation measures without further delay.

Furthermore, Vice-President Kroes also appealed recently to the two operators concerned to step up their efforts. These requests are based on the key role that wireless broadband (both satellite and terrestrial) can play to ensure broadband coverage, including in remote and rural areas, which is in fact one of the objectives set by the Commission on the  Digital Agenda for Europe.