Romania risks infringement if it fails to adopt new EU portability stipulations

Newsroom 24/05/2011 | 17:21

Romania runs the risk of an infringement procedure in case the new European number portability stipulations do not come into force on May 25th, which is the deadline set by the European Commission.

The new set of rules will come into force in Europe on May 25th. These new rules give more rights to customers enabling them to port their telephone number of another network in just one day, have access to more clear information regarding the services as well as benefit from more online data protection.

However, in Romania the bill is still blocked in the Senate, “having been submitted in mid February in the Romanian Parliament in order to follow the legislative course. At this point, the legislative proposal is in the parliamentary commissions in the Senate, and must then follow the normal legislative process- the voting in joint meeting, then it will be sent to the Deputies’ Chamber and then published in the Official Registry,” said Catalin Marinescu, president of ANCOM for Ziarul Financiar.

According to data from the Authority, the total of ported telephone numbers in more than 2 years since the launch of portability in Romania surpassed 500,000. Of these, 68 percent of the ported numbers were mobile phone numbers and the rest fixed phone numbers.