Following the breakdown of the Enertel telecommunications consortium (CI No 2,693), the Dutch parliament appears to be in legislative disarray, reports Het Financieele Dagblad. A broad parliamentary majority has called on public works minister Annemarie Jorritsma to withdraw the existing interim telecommunications bill, whose provisions would allow one national operator to compete with Koninklijke PTT Nederland NV. According to M van Zuylen, parliamentary spokesmen for the Labour PvdA party, the duopoly envisaged in Jorritsma’s bill was no longer feasible in view of the consortium’s self-destruction. However, this is not the view of the divorced partners. The Enertel rump, consisting of national cable television companies, has commissioned the Booz Allen & Hamilton consultancy to develop a business plan, to be completed by September, which it said will serve as the basis for Enertel’s application for the second national telephone infrastructure licence. The consortium insists it is still capable of providing a national infrastructure, despite the withdrawal of Dutch railway company Nederlandse Spoorwegen NV. The railway now also plans to seek a national licence and is wooing BellSouth Corp to side with it, although the Atlanta company is playing hard to get and declines to say with which parties it will side – and indeed whether it remains interested in the Dutch market. Ms Jorritsma said she is now weighing up three possible means of creating competition in the telecommunication market – in particular granting more than one national licence, which she concedes would necessitate the withdrawal of her interim legislative proposal. A third option would be the creation a network of regional operators that would collectively cover the entire – very small – country, although there are severe doubts that such a fragmented network would have the clout needed to form a true rival to PTT Telecom.
