The European Commission has published its seventh report on the implementation of the existing telecoms regulatory package across the EU.

The report, published last November, reviews major developments in the telecommunications market over the past year in the context of both the eEurope objectives set at the Lisbon and Feira Council meetings and the forthcoming adoption of the new EU regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services.

The report is generally positive about national regulatory authorities' increasing expertise and authority in implementing the regulatory framework and their growing tendency to cooperate with each other, especially through the Independent Regulators Group. The report also notes the buoyant state of the electronic communications market against general economic trends.

The chapter relating to the UK's record and Oftel's performance over the past year is primarily positive and shows many encouraging developments. It reports in particular on the huge volume of work done by Oftel to put an effective regulatory framework in place to implement the LLU Regulation which came into force in January 2001.

The report is available on the Commission's website at: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/telecoms/implementation/annual_report/7report/index_en.htm.

For further information contact (tel: 020 7634 5306 / e-mail: rachel.coldeboeuf@oftel.gov.uk).