The European Union has decided that Germany’s recent moves to speed up the liberalisation of its telecoms market are enough to allow the Global One alliance between Sprint Corp, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to proceed: Global One has now received formal regulatory approval from the EU. As a consequence, the Atlas European joint venture between France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom has now also been granted regulatory approval. The last obstacle was cleared two weeks ago, after the upper house of the German parliament finally abandoned its opposition to the government’s ground-breaking telecommunications bill. The opposition mainly concerned the level of control the government would have over the telecoms watchdog that will be created to monitor Germany’s liberalised market in 1998, and its fears that telecoms services in rural areas would suffer as a result of the liberalization plans. The revised decision came just in the nick of time as the German parliament dissolves on July 19, after which the government would have failed to comply with the European Union’s liberalisation demands and the Global One alliance would most likely have been given the thumbs down. Clearance by the EU was the last hurdle to be overcome, following decisions by the US Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice to approve the plan.
