Proposition 53K1247

Projet de loi portant des dispositions diverses en matière de télécommunications.

General information ¶

Submitted by

CD&V Leterme Ⅱ

Submission date

Feb. 24, 2011

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive civil servant mediator consumer protection consumer information protection of privacy electronic mail postal and telecommunications services telecommunications

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

April 7, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, the draft law which we are going to vote has the purpose of amending two laws: the Act of 17 January 2003 relating to the status of the regulator, the IBPT, and the Law of 13 June 2005 relating to electronic communications.

There are five elements to be highlighted in this bill. There is obviously the improvement of the functioning of the IBPT by imposing, among other things, to present to the House a three-year strategic plan. There is also the improvement of final user information by imposing a detailed invoice at least every quarter and, on each invoice, information relating to the best suited tariff plan. Subsequently, the telephone support services will be improved in terms of contact possibilities and response time, but the King will be able to impose maximum waiting times on these same services if the charter in preparation does not bring improvement to the current situation. Finally, the latter element aims to set the financial conditions for the minimum deactivation or commissioning as well as the reactivation for which the maximum cost is fixed.

This project, therefore, concerns only urgent issues to be resolved before the review of the new telecom package, which is to be transposed by May 25 next year. Of course, we will have to consider this project in the Infrastructure Committee.

At the level of the general discussion, the debate mainly focused on the current and urgent nature of this project. The Government specified that this project was the subject of an agreement before the dissolution of the Chambers in May 2010 and that it was taken into account the opinion of the State Council that it was not appropriate to wait for the review of the telecommunications package because there is an urgent need to improve the functioning of the IBPT to enable it to be fully operational.

The discussion mainly focused on various amendments and I would like to quote a few of them:

- an amendment on the initiatives of the Advisory Committee has been adopted;

- an amendment aimed at removing the function of Mission Officer within the IBPT was rejected, as this function was deemed useful and complementary;

- an amendment on compensation for termination of fixed-term contracts has been filed and rejected, but the issue will be discussed, in particular in the framework of the upcoming Telecom package project;

- an amendment on the imposition of a monthly invoice without surcharge was rejected, as no complaint was found in this regard;

- an amendment aimed at creating a module for the comparison of tariffs was rejected, as the law of 13 June 2005 already provides for this;

- an amendment for the creation of a standardized information sheet was also rejected, the minister explaining that the telecommunications package will provide for this and will be the subject of a separate bill;

- an amendment on support services and helpdesks proposes that the consumer can also be contacted from any coordinate and not only by telephone.

Other technical amendments have been proposed and adopted.

In the end, the text was approved by 14 votes for and 1 abstinence.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the present draft law containing various provisions on telecommunications, after consultation with the sector, correctly addresses a number of shortcomings and some questions of the sector, which have already emerged in the past.

It is clear that the present draft law sets a new step in terms of refining and updating both laws, as cited by Ms. De Bue. On the one hand, there is the law concerning the status of the regulator of the Belgian postal and telecommunications sector. On the other hand, there is the law on electronic communications.

There has already been a good debate in the committee. Both by majority and by opposition, a number of relevant elements were cited. There are also sufficient elements present to prove that the present bill is a solid workpiece. However, we will not approve this bill.

I would like to join the members who have taken the effort to submit some amendments themselves. These are amendments which they have already put forward in the committee, but which they considered to be sufficiently important to be submitted to the plenary session of the Chamber here too. I would like to contribute to them because the comments they made at that time are relevant. I would like to join the plea held at the time, in particular to consider the amendments still in place, to incorporate them into the law and thus to amend the draft law.

I will address my own amendment as the last.

Mr Geerts and Mrs Temmerman submitted two amendments addressing complaints and the shortcomings and difficulties consumers as end-users currently face with telecom operators. The government should not act in such a way as to restrict or punish, but should take care that the relationship proceeds as optimally as possible. Consumers should be armed as best as possible in order to make full use of their rights.

I believe that the two aspirations of colleagues Geerts and Temmerman are not impossible. The Minister and the committee members may have considered that their requests were not sufficiently addressed, but I believe that their concerns are justified and I call for support for both amendments.

The same reasoning applies to the amendments of Mr Dedecker. Although his proposal on the standardised information sheet is quite technical, I think he has a point when he says that wildlife must be put to an end. This is also noticeable with the energy suppliers, where sometimes through the forest you can no longer see the trees and it is difficult to pay the correct bill.

Sometimes there is the impression – and it is up to us to remove that doubt – that some benefit from an enormous diversity in the information offered, depending on the telecommunications operator to which one is connected. The choice of formulas that change year after year is enormous. The consumer assumes that he is connected to telecom operator X – insofar as this retains his name – and has subscribed to a specific formula, while after a few years he suddenly discovers that he has a different package. In order to find all that back in the invoice, the necessary efforts must be made.

I repeat, it is a missed opportunity.

The biggest missed opportunity is that concerning the political independence of the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications.

Mr. Minister, you are pleased to communicate. That is, of course, part of your task. You have to watch over it. Of course, you prefer to do so through the most modern telecommunications channels. I remember that in 2009 a so-called important step was taken in connection with the administrative status of the staff members of the BIPT and that you then knocked on your chest and said that we had to see with what beautiful evidence you came out, to get rid of the politicization of the public institutions.

Unfortunately, those who were deceived by you were deceived for the trouble. Through the reform as you presented at the time, one was finally satisfied with a dead mouse, in the form of a reform of the board of directors.

The board of directors would be so-called independent and depolitized, but through the back door there is the appointment of people who are not so unspeakable in the sense of political ties, and for whom you create the position of special commissioner. That’s a nice trick, that’s well found. We see this also in other organs, where one shows along the forehead through a beautiful display that one is objective, neutral and depolitized, while through the rear door again the same politicians sit down at the kitchen table.

I think it is a missed opportunity. I had expected you as a minister to have more hair on your teeth to make this dossier a point. Unfortunately, you did not do that in 2009 and not now either. Again, it is a missed opportunity, a double deficiency in the current bill.

We have also submitted these amendments here. The citizen has all interests in a sound supervisory body. It is a matter of many resources. If we see what amounts make the round in the telecommunications sector – we saw today in De Tijd what amounts are for Belgacom – then that is not a little. We are therefore interested in having such a regulator, an independent regulator such as the BIPT. We must be able to do this hard.

The Minister said in the committee that it all goes well because at the new year reception of KPN even the praise was swung over independence. Of course, one should take the statements at a New Year’s reception slightly with a grain of salt. Everything also has its purpose. I hope you will not base your policy on statements on receptions. You also referred to a point of view that was not so much taken at a reception but which, in your opinion, was still decisive. That hit what was said in connection with ECTA in which Belgium would have gone from seventh to eleventh place. You said that we did well because we have grown up in terms of neutrality and independence.

It is, of course, easy to compare you, in a sector where there is still a lot of work ahead in terms of regulation and objectification, with the poor learners. When you came home with a bad report, you probably compared yourself to the worst student. I would recommend that you compare yourself in this with the good students.

Ms. De Bue has already provided an excellent report on the discussions in the committees. I will not repeat this, nor the content of the subject.

Mr. Minister, I can reassure you. We will approve this. We remain with our two amendments. Despite the fact that you have said to be behind it and that you would include it in the package deal, we want it to change for the sake of consumers immediately and not again so much later.

The first amendment concerns the breakdown compensation. When terminating contracts of certain duration, telecom operators sometimes dare to demand exuberant amounts. We want that there is a fixed amount that varies depending on the period within which the contract is terminated. One time it is 50 euros, the other time maximum 75 euros. We want a fixed amount so that not every operator can simply choose how to charge the breakdown fee. We are ⁇ not alone in this. Our own Ombudsman Service recommends a fixed amount. The Commission on Illegal Claims has also noted this. If we want to take both committees seriously, the amendment must be approved.

The second amendment concerns the right of a subscriber to a monthly and free invoice. A lot of people have trouble paying the bill of their telecom equipment. The budget management within the OCMW will be the first to cover these costs. If these people get an invoice every two or three months, it will only be more expensive. This can be done monthly and free of charge. Most operators agree to give it monthly, but then they charge a surplus.

I do not understand this because it is primarily also in the interest of the operators that they receive their payments. For this reason, we have submitted an amendment so that these items can be obtained monthly free of charge.

Mr. Speaker, I think all the amendments submitted again have already been extensively discussed in the committee. I can only repeat what I said then, namely that the telecom package that needs to be converted...

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Everybody has ever made a slide.

Mr. Minister, colleagues, as I said last time, for the first part of the bill, I would like to emphasize especially the stronger involvement of the BIPT and Parliament. In our telecommunications market, more than ever, we need a strong regulator that is preferably as independent as possible, as Mr Veys has already stated. First and foremost, it must be a strong regulator that takes preventive measures to keep our market competitive.

This was recently demonstrated in a study by Beltug, the interest association of telecom customers in the business market. They have checked how many offers they receive when their members submit a telecommunications tender. The number 3 was rarely reached. Usually it was 2 and often only 1 offer. So bad is the situation with our telecom market today. We can no longer call them competitive, ⁇ not in the business market.

The situation in the consumer market is not much better. As a group, we can only congratulate that the regulator, the BIPT, will come to explain its policies in Parliament and that this will be discussed.

In consumer matters, we have other concerns, not so much about the content, but about how it was brought to Parliament. As the State Council has already noted in its opinion, it is a partial transposition of the European telecommunications package. That conversion should be completed by next month. However, we will not meet that deadline. The draft law has not yet been submitted and the discussions on the universal service will take a while to occupy. The Minister has already stated this in the committee.

As colleagues Temmerman and De Bue, in their report, have already explained, the colleagues of sp.a and our group have submitted some amendments that improve consumer protection and make the market more transparent for the many consumers who today cannot see the forest through the trees. It doesn’t need to be charged anymore: that market is as opaque as it can be. Test purchases appeared in the media last week. We collectively pay billions of bills too much because we are at the wrong operator.

In addition to the amendments of the SP, we also submitted two amendments.

The first amendment provides for a standard file for tariff formulas, as you may know from the prospectus for financial products and investment products, following the example of France, where it has long been common. The Minister also expressed his support. This is only included in the telecom package. I wonder why this need to be delayed.

The second amendment provides for the introduction of the possibility for consumers to download their invoice in an automatically processable format. In this way we can automatically create more correct and better tariff comparison modules. That this is highly necessary, as previously stated, was already demonstrated by Test-Buy.

The website www.bestetarief.be has lost its Soviet jacket since last week, but it can be much better. The website does not always work optimally. Until last week, there were still tariff formulas that had not been available for months. The newest ones were still not there. That may be the responsibility of the operators, who must pass the tariffs, but a minimum check or sample of the BIPT seems to me quite essential. Of course, it is even better if there are more possibilities to do so.

It is not so obvious for the consumer to fill in the correct data on that website. Do you know, as a consumer, just out of your mind how much of your calls go to foreign operators and how much to your own operator? This is not so obvious. Therefore, we propose that this data be transmitted automatically. I know that BIPT that has already tried in the past, but that happened in a very rigorous way that was difficult to ⁇ for the operators.

Our amendment allows the operators themselves to establish a detailed format, which then is approved by the BIPT and remains fixed for a period of time. For operators, this is a minimum cost. On this basis, both the BIPT, the operators, and possibly consumer organisations or other organisations themselves can build a better working tariff comparator.

Both amendments were rejected by the majority together with the amendments of sp.a, arguing that almost all of them will return to the telecom package.

If we want to be consistent, we have two choices. Either postpone the entire chapter 2, everything in the telecom package, or approve the amendments of N-VA and sp.a.

If you are going to do the same in the conversion soon, why wait? Why are consumers denied this opportunity now? Why should they wait for it? Therefore, I ask you to be consistent and to approve these proposals.

The amendments that have been submitted have, of course, been discussed extensively in the committee. I also said then why we should not approve them.

It has not only a formal reason. It is not only because the telecom package comes in, but also because the choices made by the different submitters of the amendments are not entirely correct of direction.

Mr Dedecker, for example, refers to the tariff simulator, but he limits himself to a certain form of telecommunication while this must apply to the entire telecommunication. I also said that this is best done after consultation with the operators, which is not the case now.

Therefore, I propose that we abide by the present text.

I also saw that 14 colleagues approved the text in the committee. There was an abstinence. I therefore request that the present bill be approved in the plenary session.

Mr. Minister, it is correct that the comparison in the original amendment is limited only to the mobile operators. In the amendment submitted today, the restriction was lifted. It applies to all electronic communications, to all operators.

Of course, I am not just proposing amendments. I also tested this with operators.