The European Commission has given up on the idea of trying to bar telecommunications companies from operating cable television networks because it proved too controversial, Commission sources told Reuter: the Commission’s competition division had included the provision in an early version of a draft directive aimed at introducing more competition to European Community markets by allowing cable television networks to carry some telephone services, but the draft argued that the same organisations should not operate both telephony and cable networks because they might favour the development of one at the expense of the other, but that provision has been omitted from the most recent version of the legislation, partly because of opposition from France and Germany.
