Wikileaks - CCIX
35572 6/29/2005 13:05 05BUCHAREST1459 Embassy Bucharest UNCLASSIFIED 05STATE114687 This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available. UNCLAS BUCHAREST 001459
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE - WSILKWORTH DEPT FOR EB/CIP - TFINTON USDOC FOR 4232/ITA/MAC/AUR/OEERIS/CEED/JBURGESS/JKIMBAL L USTR FOR JONATHAN MCHALE/PAUL NEUREITER
E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECPS, ETRD, ECON, EU, RO, Telecommunication Agreement SUBJECT: ROMANIA: LICENSING CONDITIONS IN TELECOM SECTOR
REF: STATE 114687
1. Embassy's Economic Section contacted Alexandrina Hirtan, Vice President of the Romanian National Regulatory Agency for Communications (ANRC), in connection with licensing fees for fixed telephony. Embassy has received the following responses to Reftel questionnaire:
2. Regarding fees charged for licensing fixed line services in excess of what is necessary to cover administrative costs: Romanian Government (GOR) Emergency Ordinance no.79/2002 on the general regulatory framework for communications, approved, with amendments and completions, by Law no.591/2002, established the general authorization regime, which replaced the former procedure requiring every provider of electronic communications to obtain an individual licence. The current general authorization procedure, under which the interested companies are granted the right to enter the Romanian market as providers of electronic communications services or networks, is free of charge. Therefore, ANRC does not charge a tariff for the authorization of the providers of electronic communications services or networks, including fixed telephony services.
3. Providers of electronic communications services, however, must pay an annual monitoring tariff to ANRC. According to the provisions of art.47 par.(1) of the GOR's Emergency Ordinance (E.O.) Number 79/2002, "the providers of electronic communications networks and services authorized pursuant to this Emergency Ordinance must pay to ANRC an annual monitoring tariff, calculated as a percentage from the turnover of each provider." By way of exception, art.47 par.(8) sets out that "the persons authorised pursuant to Art.4 to provide exclusively for their own needs electronic communications networks and services using radio-electric frequencies shall be exempted from paying the annual monitoring tariff."
4. The annual monitoring tariff is calculated as a percentage of each provider's turnover. This percent is determined each year, without exceeding 0.5%, as the ratio between (a) the expenses estimated for the current year, provided for in the ANRC's budget, approved according to art.42 of Government Emergency Ordinance no.79/2002, amount from which the revenues provisioned from other sources, as provided for in the approved budget, shall be deducted; and (b) the cumulative turnover for the previous year of all providers of electronic communications networks and services who owe the annual monitoring tariff.
5. The monitoring tariff owed by each provider is calculated using (a) the percentage determined according to the provisions mentioned above, and (b) the revenue of the provider concerned for the previous year.
6. Regarding licenses for the use of numbering resources, ANRC can grant the right to use certain numbers from the National Numbering Plan, upon request, to any provider of publicly available electronic communications services authorized under art.4 of GOR's E.O. no.79/2002. ANRC may ask the holders of licenses to pay a certain tariff for the use of numbering resources. At this moment, the use of numbering resources is free of charge.
7. ANRC neither imposes any capitalization or bonding requirements nor any build-out investment requirements. DELARE
