MEPs debated the reform of the regulatory framework for electronic communications - including mobile and fixed telephones, broadcasting and the internet. The telecoms package seeks to strengthen consumer rights and privacy protection, to ensure a consistent application of regulatory measures and to modernise radio spectrum use. The entire European Parliament will vote on the package during the second September plenary
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Finally, Ms Trautmann regretted that the intellectual property rights issue had arisen now, and felt that it should be resolved without substantially changing the proposal.

"Unfortunately, the real benefits of this package risk being undermined by alarmist scaremongering that it will cause certain websites to be blocked, and consumers prosecuted for copyright abuse."

In order to address public interest issues with respect to the use of communications services, and to encourage protection of the rights and freedoms of others, the relevant national authorities should be able to produce and have disseminated, with the aid of providers, information related to the use of communications services. This information should include warnings regarding copyright infringement, other unlawful uses and dissemination of harmful content(...)

Management of networks in order to, for example, address congestion and capacity constraints and to enable new services should not per se be considered an example of a restriction requiring intervention, and due account should be taken of the right of network and service operators to diversify their offerings in a competitive market, including through the imposition of reasonable usage restrictions, price differentiation and other legitimate competitive practices.

Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, advertisers and copyright owners have been tempting them to put their users' secrets up for sale, and judging from a recent flurry of reports, ISPs are giving in to the temptation and experimenting with new forms of spying. This is only the leading edge of a coming storm of unprecedented and invasive ISP surveillance.