A European Commission proposal to create a European Union-wide system for licensing satellite personal communications operators has run into trouble with national governments, diplomats and officials told Reuter: they said quite a few member states, including the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands, have questioned whether the Commission is the appropriate body to decide which operators should be to licensed and how this should be done; they argued that the decisions should be made by national governments, perhaps co-ordinating through an organisation such as the CEPT Conference on European Posts & Telecommunications; the Commission argued that the Union needed to develop common criteria for selecting the networks that will be able to offer voice and data services via satellite to hand- held equipment; noting that the US had already licensed three personal communications systems that are poised to set up global operations by the end of the decade, it said a disunited Europe could be left behind.
