For the report of Hökmar on the 1st Radio Spectrum policy programme more than 402 amendments were tabled.
Draft report 1- 52 by the rapporteur
– of course the proposals from the other Committees also have to be considered.
The amendments demonstrate a high degree of awareness in Parliament and great interest of members in spectrum issues. Members seem to be better experts in spectrum than the draftpersons of the Commission, MEPs know very wekk where to stick. I didn’t find any particular objectionable proposal among their amendments. In fact they were all quite good to stress the crucial elements of spectrum governance.
What I am a quite a bit dissatisfied with, that is the legalistic quality of the original European Commission proposal. To give you an example, a “de minimis” rule should be applied to the list of general principles in Article 2. If principles are phrases in a complicated way they become ineffective as means of principled governance. Lasting principles have to be simple. You often wish an ockham’s razor procedure in the drafting process, in particular in telecommunications.
Another great example, the Commission’s proposal:
(c) applying the least onerous authorisation system possible in such a way as to maximise flexibility and efficiency in spectrum usage;
As a native speaker of English you wonder why for this harmless provision amendments were proposed in the Opinions and suspect an agenda. But the actual reason is the use of the phrase “onerous”
a) It catches the eye. You don’t find that in a standard “Europaish” vocabulary.
b) It is worded in a negative way.
So what did MEPs come up with? Alternative phrasings attempts and compromises. From a “linguistic clarification” it transforms into amendment pingpong e.g.
(c) applying the most appropriate authorisation system (188 Audy) (words it positive)
(c) applying in a non-discriminatory manner the least onerous authorisation system (183)
(c) applying the most appropriate, nondiscriminatory and least onerous authorisation system (186/185)
(c) applying the least onerous nondiscriminatory authorisation system (189 Koch-Mehrin)
(c) applying the most appropriate, least onerous and non-discriminatory authorisation system (187)
(c) applying the most appropriate, transparent and flexible authorisation system (184)
Sköne Oke 
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