German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s call for federal elections ...

in North Rhine-Westphalia, the country’s largest state, said Axel Spies, a German attorney in Washington with clients in the industry. With a 28% approval rating, Schroeder stands a good chance of losing the election, expected to occur around Sept. 18, he said. A loss shouldn’t affect telecom regulator RegTP’s ongoing review, under the e- communications regulatory framework, of telecom markets, Spies said, but competitive telcos expect “significant delays” in release of new laws and rules. Amendments to the Telecom Act probably won’t be adopted as quickly as planned because of the need to set rules for reimbursing carriers for surveillance and eavesdropping and because the election campaign could slow things down. That would give Parliament a clean slat against which to debate the measures again after the election and restart the legislative process -- leaving telcos to deal with more unpredictability until year’s end, Spies said. Moreover, he said, the European Commission (EC) has threatened to sue Germany in the European Court of Justice over provisions in the country’s telecom act the Commission thinks don’t give the regulator enough discretion in controlling prices set by incumbent Deutsche Telekom. The Federal Ministry of Economics, RegTP and industry are working on a solution (parliamentary approval required) to head off a suit that “would put the entire German regime on price control in jeopardy,” Spies said. But it’s unclear now whether Parliament will be able to vote on the specific amendment by an end-of-June deadline set by the EC.