EU still unhappy with Japan over telecoms
TOKYO, March 13 (AFP) -
The European Union is still not satisfied with Japan's assurances on the deregulation of its telecommunications market and is threatening to take Tokyo to the World Trade Organisation if new laws do not meet its demands, a senior EU official said Tuesday.
"I am rather unsatisfied -- the discussions have not been very clear," said Roderick Abbott, the European Commission's deputy director general for trade.
His comments came at the end of a two-day visit to Tokyo to follow up on points put to the Japanese authorities by EU trade commissioner Pascal Lamy during his visit here in February.
"We did not receive specific answers to our questions -- we have not been given a great deal of information. It is an unhappy situation after these three years of discussions," Abbott said at a press conference.
He bemoaned the fact that the EU side had "obtained virtually no information" about the new telecoms deregulation law which has to be voted upon by the Diet (parliament) in a matter of weeks.
Abbott had earlier taken part in a special session of the regulatory reform dialogue committee with Hitoshi Tanaka, director general of the economic bureau of the ministry of foreign affairs.
On February 16, Lamy warned that the EU would take Tokyo to the WTO's dispute settlement panel if the new deregulation law did not address European concerns, in particular, establishing competitive conditions allowing domestic telecom giant NTT Corp.'s virtual monopoly to be challenged.
Abbott indicated the EU's stance was unchanged, but its patience was wearing thin.
"We are going to wait for the new law but we are not going to wait for ever," before resorting to the WTO, he said.