The European Commission and Spain made little progress last week on the opening of the Spanish telecommunications market to free competition, which holds the key to approval of Telefonica de Espana SA joining the Unisource BV services alliance. However the two sides were optimistic a compromise would be found, possibly before mid-November, when the European Community is expected to improve its offer on telecommunications market liberalization at the World Trade Organization. At issue is the granting of licenses to allow new operators to compete with partly state-owned Telefonica. The Commission wants early opening of the Spanish market in return for approving Unisource.
