Telecom liberalisation must speed up, says Vassiliou

THE LIBERALISATION of the telecommunications sector must be speeded up in keeping with European directives, Cyprus’ chief EU negotiator George Vassiliou stressed again yesterday.

Vassiliou was speaking after a morning meeting with President Glafcos Clerides and others to discuss the acceleration of the liberalisation of the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CyTA).

He noted that this process had been “slow” and pointed out that this was beneficial neither to Cyprus nor to CyTA itself, as it wold not be able to compete in the new liberalised market.

EU officials have singled out the telecommunications’ sector as lagging behind Cyprus’ harmonisation process.

During yesterday’s meeting, Vassiliou said decisions had been taken on how to proceed with liberalisation and described the meeting as “useful”.

“We came to common decisions about how we’re going to proceed, and now the only thing that’s left for us is to actually go and do the work.” he said.

Communications Minister Leontios Ierodiaconou, who also took part in the meeting, said that the decisions taken included proposals being prepared to go before the House which, in effect, would make CyTA a private company. All changes in the law would, he added, be ready by the end of the year.

“We have to make the process quicker, and we discussed how to change the procedures so that the necessary laws can be drafted,” he said.

The government announced plans in January to turn the state telecommunications monopoly into a joint-stock company.

The announcement, which appeared to be a prelude to the eventual privatisation of CyTA, triggered an angry response from trade unions and opposition politicians, who argue liberalisation should not automatically mean privatisation of the semi-government organisation – just a relaxation of its monopoly.

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