On 19 May 2004, the Italian regulatory authority AGCOM published a decision (Delibera 118/04/CONS, dating back to 5 May 2004), containing a statement on the market reviews that it is conducting in accordance with the legislative decree of 1 August 2003 (effective as of 16 Sep 2003) which transposed the EU Directives.

The AGCOM (in a quite creative manner) is extending the 120-day deadline for conducting the market reviews, which is determined by Article 19.2 a) of the legislative decree, and confirms the following.

• In terms of market definition, AGCOM sees no economic or legal reasons to deviate from the 18 markets identified by the European Commission’s Recommendation on Relevant Markets Susceptible to Ex-Ante Regulation, but AGCOM reserves the right to further segment some of these markets.

• For each relevant market, AGCOM will conduct an analysis of competitiveness, identify dominant operators (if any), and will put forward a proposal to remove, maintain, or modify existing regulatory obligations, and consider the merits of imposing new obligations.

• Given the complexity of the task at hand, and the involvement of multiple AGCOM departments, the board of AGCOM has decided that it is appropriate to nominate specific officials to be in charge of each market review, and to have the co-ordinator of departments and services, and the legal director of AGCOM, exercise management roles so as to ensure maximum coherence and efficiency in completing the market reviews, and report periodically to the AGCOM board. This amounts to a change of internal organisation of the AGCOM, to streamline and expedite the process.

• After the completion of a national consultation on AGCOM’s provisional conclusions from the market reviews, the results will be passed on to the competition authority (Autorità garante della concorrenza e del mercato), in accordance with the co-operation agreement of 27 Jan 2004 (see also a previous T-REGS news item), and thereafter the notifications will be made to the European Commission.

• Until the completion of the market review process, existing regulatory obligations, resulting from the previous regulatory framework, remain fully in force.