Parliament has officially formed its conciliation delegation for the telecoms package, following which the 27 MEPs on the delegation nominated a three-member team to open negotiations with the Council Presidency on Tuesday. The team consists of EP Vice-President Alejo Vidal-Quadras (EPP, Spain), Industry Committee Chair Herbert Reul (EPP, Germany) and rapporteur Catherine Trautmann (S-D, France).

Following intensive negotiations in spring this year, EP negotiators and the Council Presidency reached a draft agreement on all three parts of the telecom package: the electronic communications framework directive, the citizens' rights directive and the establishment of a new European body of telecom regulators called BEREC.

The plenary approved the compromise at second reading in May but also restored one of Parliament's first-reading amendments, that Council had rejected, regarding Internet access.  This amendment says "no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities (...) save when public security is threatened".

Next steps

The Council now has until 26 October to decide formally whether to accept all Parliament's second-reading amendments. However, on 11 June the EU's telecoms ministers indicated that the Council would not approve Parliament's additional amendment on Internet access.

The EP negotiating team will start talks with the Swedish Presidency on Tuesday and report back to the full EP delegation in the next few weeks. Once Parliament and Council believe their positions are close enough to anticipate that an agreement can be reached, a formal meeting of the whole conciliation committee, made up of Parliament and Council representatives, will be convened.

At their vote in Plenary Session on May 6th 2009, MEPs amended a political agreement reached with the Council on the reform of the regulatory framework for electronic communications. The Telecom package includes the revision of the electronic communications framework, the citizens' rights directiveand the establishment of a new European body of telecom regulators called BEREC.