128. Points out that, as outermost regions lie in areas of the Atlantic and the Indian oceans and are well placed for observing phenomena such as those related to weather cycles and vulcanology and, furthermore, that oceanography, biodiversity, environmental quality, management of natural resources, energy and water, genetics, public health, health sciences, new telecommunications systems and services in these territories are par excellence fields for European research, these regions should be considered when planning future research ...[+++]and development programmes;

EUROVOC descriptor: employment policy transmission network less-favoured region economic growth new technology telecommunications information technology Internet information society

13. Points to the need for an adequate transport, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure network and considers that it would be desirable to launch a European public loan to finance the investment necessitated by enlargement for the regions which have less in the way of such facilities and to connect these regions with the outlying and less-favoured regions in the current Member States;

12. Points to the need for an adequate transport, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure network and considers that it would be desirable to launch a European public loan to finance the investment necessitated by enlargement for the regions which have less in the way of such facilities and to connect these regions with the outlying and less-favoured regions in the current Member States;

[10] Council Recommendation 98/560/EC of 24 September 1998 on the development of the competitiveness of the European audiovisual and information services industry by promoting national frameworks aimed at achieving a comparable and effective level of protection of minors and human dignity; Green Paper on the Protection of Minors and Human Dignity in Audiovisual and Information Services; COM(96) 483, October 1996, [http ...]

It is true that Council Directive 92/44/EEC of 5 June 1992 on the application of open network provision to leased lines, amended by Commission Decision 94/439/EC (8), harmonizes the basic principles regarding the provision of leased lines, but it only harmonizes the conditions of access and use of leased lines. The aim of that Directive is not to remedy the conflict of interest of the telecommunications organizations as infrastructure and service providers. It does not impose a structural separation between the telecommunications organizations as providers of leased lines and as service providers. Complaints illustrate that even in Membe ...[+++]r States which have implemented that Directive, telecommunications organizations still use their control of the access conditions to the network at the expense of their competitors in the services market. Complaints show that telecommunications organizations still apply excessive tariffs and that they use information acquired as infrastructure providers regarding the services planned by their competitors, to target clients in the services market. Directive 92/44/EEC only provides for the principle of cost-orientation and does not prevent telecommunications organizations to use the information acquired as capacity provider as regards subscribers' usage patterns, necessary to target specific groups of users, and on price elasticities of demand in each service market segment and region of the country. The current regulatory framework does not resolve the conflict of interest mentioned above. The most appropriate remedy to this conflict of interest is therefore to allow service providers to use own or third party telecommunications infrastructure to provide their services to the final customers instead of the infrastructure of their main competitor. In its resolution of 22 December 1994 the Council also approved the principle that infrastructure provision should be liberalized.