European Community Competition Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan will again seek his colleagues’ approval for a green paper on the future of monopolies in cross-border telephone calls in the Community today, Reuter reports from Brussels: Sir Leon’s paper was rejected by at least six other Commissioners at a meeting two weeks ago, largely because of references to possible deregulation of national telephone monopolies over inter-Community calls – France was privately lobbying the Commission to make sure no such proposal was issued before its September referendum on the Maastricht Treaty, Reuter hears; the proposal is based on an extensive and still unpublished survey of prices, which makes clear that charges for cross-border calls can be far higher than for domestic calls over the same distance and that the higher price for cross-border calls bears little if any relation to costs; Commissioners are split on the link between the call for talks with national phone companies and talk of deregulation before the consultation has ended.
