Madam President, it is one of the finer ironies of political life that, when I rise to speak on the subject of voice telephony, I have hardly any voice! But I do not want Commissioner Bangemann to miss my compliment to him, because all too often I have made stinging criticisms. It is reassuring to know that the Commission plans to reintroduce this proposal during the course of this year.

Perhaps, Commissioner, you could explain in a little more detail whether the substance of the new proposal will be broadly comparable with the previous one, because if that is the case then I am sure that the new Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will have no problem at all in completing its work with all speed. I ask the question because during the conciliation negotiations with the Council there was considerable evidence that some Member States were rethinking their attitude and their support for liberalization of voice telephony, for a variety of often contradictory reasons. I would like to ask you, Commissioner, whether you have plans to alter the basis of this directive. You may remember that the Council changed its position halfway through Parliament's, deliberations, and that we did not hold up the process, but continued with our work. Clarification on that would be of great advantage.

Can I take up something else that Mr von Wogau and the Commissioner touched on, namely, the reason why this House rejected the proposal. I emphasized at the time, and emphasize again now, that this was not because there was basic disagreement over the principles contained in the proposal, even though, Commissioner, the social cost of liberalization, the social cost of making telecommunications in the European Union competitive, can often be very high indeed - in the United Kingdom 100 000 jobs have been lost in British Telecom since it was privatized. But if I can give you an example of why comitology in the field of telecommunications is so important to a cross-section of groups within this House: some three and a half years ago I was the rapporteur on the harmonization of type approval of telecommunications terminal equipment - that is quite a mouthful, but basically it means the "joining bits". It has now come to my notice that this is going to be amended, by the comitology procedure, that gives no power

to this Parliament, in respect of blind people and the adaptation of switchboards for their use. In one Member State alone, the United Kingdom, 30 000 jobs will be lost if this proposal is not put into practice at both European Union level and Member State level. From my point of view, the fact that I cannot represent the many blind or partially-sighted people in my constituency to put their point of view on this very important amendment which will safeguard their future employment, seems to me to be quite wrong. I am sure you know, Commissioner, the strength of feeling about comitology and the amount of effort this House has put into it.

Can I close by assuring you that we will do our very best to cooperate with the content, speed and processes of a new proposal and to work with you, and by saying that I very much hope the Council will come forward soon with proposals for an interinstitutional agreement on comitology.