The Council agreed on a general approach, pending the Opinion of the European Parliament, on the revision of the guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks which have been in force since 1997. It instructed the Presidency to forward this approach informally to the Parliament with a view to reaching an agreement between the co-legislators at the first reading if possible.
The amendments, which mainly concern Annex I to Decision 1336/97/EC, take account of a special report from the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the Decision, plus an external evaluation, technological progress since 1997 and the expertise gained through management of the programme. These amendments concern inter alia the trans-European dimension of the projects concerned, the strategic priorities of the eEurope Action Plan, reduction of the number of areas covered by the projects, the deployment of public services and the interconnection and interoperability of the networks.�