The Vicepresident of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC), Alexandrina Hirtan and the Director of the Economic Market Regulation Division, Radu Tudorache, attended on October 9, 2002, the meeting on "The Liberalization of the Communications Market", organised by Business Media Group, and presented the organisation and functioning process of ANRC as well as its main steps and priorities by January 1, 2003.
Alexandrina Hirtan asserted that the National Regulatory Authority for Communications, active since September 25, 2002, has started the elaboration process for the secondary legislative package considered to be a priority in the liberalization of the Romanian communications market. This package includes the general authorizations and the notification procedures for the network and electronic communication services providers.
"These documents will always be subject to a process of consultation with the industry and the civil society before beeing issued by ANRC through a normative decision. We do not want to elaborate regulations behind closed doors, without keeping a permanent contact with the concrete realities of this sector or without previously consulting those affected by these regulations", declared Alexandrina Hirtan.
Radu Tudorache, Director of The Economic Market Regulation Division, specified that, at the present moment, the Romanian electronic communications legislation is harmonised with the European regulations that will become effective at the beginning of the second half of 2003, therefore Romania is among the European states that have the most modern legislation in this field. Radu Tudorache revealed to the participants that the priorities of ANRC by December 31, 2002, involve the elaboration of the "Reglementation regarding the identification of the relevant electronic communication markets", and of the "Reglementation regarding the conducting of market analyses and the determining of the operators with significant power on the market", as well as the implementation of the market analyses in order to identify the operators with significant power.
In elaborating these documents, ANRC will initially concentrate upon the markets that provide gross networks and fixed telephony services, where eliminating the monopoly, beginning on January 1, 2003, requires the prompt intervention of ANRC, will permanently cooperate with the Consultative Council and will respect the principles of transparency and public consultation with the operators and other representatives of the civil society.
In case of violation of the provisions for interconnecting and access at the electronic communication networks and their infrastructure, the penalties may amount to 5% of the revenue of the electronic communications provider. "We consider the violations of the provisions regarding the access and the interconnecting to be very serious and to have a very important impact on the free competition. There are administrative penalties that amount to one billion lei for even less serious violations," added the Vice-president of ANRC, Alexandrina Hirtan.
In case of serious and repeted violations of the provisions of EUG 79/2002 and of the obligations stipulated by Ordinance 34/2002, regarding the access to the electronic communication networks, the associated infrastructure, and their interconnection, ANRC may suspend or withdraw the right of the provider to supply electronic communication networks or services, as stipulated in the general authorisation, if the provider does not remedy the violation under the terms stipulated by the law, and if its justification is not satisfactory.