It’s easy to get the impression US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor spends his whole time bashing the Japs, but he is in fact quite impartial and bashes all the Axis powers with equal vigour. Yesterday, it was the Germans, in particular minister of posts and telecommunications Wolfgang Btsch, getting the rough edge of his tongue as he voiced his concern over Germany’s problem in meeting guidelines on telecommunications. Germany has admitted that it won’t be able to meet guidelines for the opening of alternative networks for telecommunications service by January 1 1996. The meeting between Kantor and Btsch precedes telecommunications talks under the World Trade Organisation in Geneva that start Friday. Meantime in an effort to get the Atlas joint venture between Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom approved by the European Commission, Telekom managing director Ron Sommer is expected to present Competition Commissioner Karel van Miert with a set of amendments this week, hears Agence Europe. The main amendment being presented is understood to be the exclusion of Info AG from the transaction. Info is a subsidiary of France Telecom Transpac, which has about 7% of the data transmission sector in Germany. But, according to sources close to the Commission, while it objected to Info, removing it will not be enough to eliminate all the Commission’s worries. It is not known what other proposals Sommer may have in reserve. But Btsch’s statement on 1996 seems to put the kibosh on Atlas anyway: Van Miert is making deregulation of internal networks a condition for approval.
