The common position adopted by the Council takes account of the report of the Bangemann group and the conclusions of the European Council of Corfu, without amending the objectives pursued by the initial proposal. The common position adopted four of the six amendments proposed by Parliament and accepted by the Commission, and in particular those which:
- sought to extend the EURO-ISDN to members of the European Economic Area;
- proposed that the wording would equally apply to applications software;
- sought to include third countries in order to allow them to become involved in projects of common interest and to promote the interconnection and interoperability of their Integrated Services Digital Networks;
- introduced into the proposed measures the list of five basic services (plain file transfer, electronic mail and messaging services, generalized access to databases, videophony and facsimile group 4).
The Council also added a number of provisions to the proposal put forward by the Commission, including:
- a new Article 2 which covered the definition of certain terms used in the measure;
- references to economic and social cohesion and to the needs of enclave regions and remote areas;
- a new Article 7 indicating that the Decision did not imply any financial commitment by a Member State or by the Community;
- a new Annex I containing definitions for the technical terms used in the Decision;
- an amendment of Annexes II defining the projects of common interest in the light of the recommendations put forward by the Bangemann report and the conclusions of the European Council of Corfu.
�