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EU moving toward

improved telecoms trade offer

BOLOGNA, Italy : All European Union states expressed willingness on Thursday to consider improving their offer to open telecommunications markets in world trade talks that are due to wind up next Tuesday, EU officials said.

"A general consensus could be noted... that we need to be flexible in this final stage," Italian Telecommunications Minister Agostino Gambino said after an informal meeting of EU telecoms ministers.

EU Telecommunications Commissioner Martin Bangemann criticised the United States, however, for backing off from an offer to open satellite personal communications networks to foreign ownership.

"This is an alarming situation," he told the news conference.

The EU is under pressure to improve its offer in the World Trade Organisation talks, especially by removing remaining foreign ownership restrictions in some countries, as a way to entice better offers from its 50 negotiating partners.

Trade diplomats in Geneva said on Wednesday they were encouraged about prospects for the deal, expected to push down telephone and other communications costs for consumers and companies, after several developing countries improved their offers.

They included Singapore, Brazil and Argentina. India was expected to table proposals for the first time and Pakistan came into the talks as a full participant.

The EU has already made an offer which it says matches a wide-ranging liberalisation tabled by the United States. But the European Commission, the EU executive, began pushing for a better offer after the United States raised its bid by agreeing to open up its local telecommunications market.

Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal wanted to hold off, however, and EU foreign ministers agreed last month to raise their offer only if other trade partners did likewise.

Gambino said the Commission would hold bilateral talks with EU states in the coming days to try to make progress ahead of a meeting on Monday of EU foreign ministers in Geneva.

Officials said Belgium, France and Spain all expressed a willingness to be flexible in Bologna but Belgium said other offers were so far insufficient.

Belgium would be willing to drop its restrictions on the number of operators who can offer telecoms services in exchange for language allowing governments to require licence-holders to fulfil "universal service" obligations, one official said.

"Universal service" is the principle that all citizens should have access to an affordable basic telephone service.

France offered to drop restrictions on indirect investments in telecoms companies by foreign parties, another official said.

Bangemann said the United States in recent talks had shown a willingness to drop restrictions on licences for submarine cables.-Reuter