Telecoms regulator Ms Etain Doyle is promoting a plan aimed at harmonising telecoms law and strengthening regulation across EU member-states.

Ms Doyle has proposed setting up a new European regulatory telecoms authority comprising European Commission officials and national telecoms regulators.

The body would have powers to implement regulations in EU member-states and would supersede plans by the Commission to boost its powers in this area.

It follows criticism from the European Commission, which blames national regulators for stifling competition by introducing different regulations in member-states.

Framework directives under consideration by the Commission would give it powers to intervene in matters of regulation to enforce harmonisation in EU member-states.

Ms Doyle, who stepped down this week as president of an the Independent Regulators' Group (IRG), outlined the alternative strategy to the European Parliament last week.

Together with other European telecoms regulators, she is pressing for the new super-regulatory body to be given recognition and a specific start date.

The new authority would offer a better way to drive harmonisation than Commission plans to boost its powers in regulation, believes Ms Doyle.

"We as regulators believe there is a very good case for us to work very closely with the Commission on the technical detail for which we are responsible," she said.

The technical details would include re-defining Internet and telephony technologies and coordinating rates of interconnect and the delivery of leased lines across different markets.

However, in an interview with The Irish Times this week, Ms Doyle defended the record of national regulators since liberalisation of the telecoms markets in 1998.

"Looking back now you can say why didn't the regulators all work much closely together? Why can't they co-ordinate together? But in fact those first series of directives did not provide for or give any legal basis for co-operation."

However, contacts between regulators at the IRG have promoted harmonisation, she says. Evidence of this is supplied by the narrowing of differences on interconnect rates across European Union states, she adds.

Enhanced co-ordination between European regulators could also strengthen them against the pressures exerted by multinational firms.

"It is important we work together particularly in the context of transnational operators that have subsidiaries in various countries," said Ms Doyle. "It's [regulation] a job which does involve a number of unpopular decisions."

However, Ms Doyle was relatively optimistic despite the pressures.

"It's a job in which one five months bears no resemblance to any other six months and issues are now more complex. You can take it that if the issues were easy they've been dealt with," she says.

"But, on the other hand, all of the regulators are more established than what they were - par for the course."

And regulation will continue to be important for some years to come, said Ms Doyle.

"The economic downturn will have tended to result in a static market in some cases or a slower process going forward. It would not be my view that the European market is competitive yet.

"How long would it take a fixed-line operator to become profitable? A normal business plan is seven or 10 years," said Ms Doyle.

The local and national markets are not yet competitive in the Republic and there are difficulties with the rollout of infrastructure, according to Ms Doyle.

"The current downturn is not encouraging in terms of infrastructure development for example but I believe we will get through this period and move onwards," she said.

"It's very important not to throw out the baby of competition with the bath water of the international downturn and various other difficulties," she said. "If you think back to the very early part of the last century, AT&T acquired a monopoly in the US on the grounds it would deliver universal service. It would be a great pity if we started the new century in the same way."