2.8.2008   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 197/8

Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Korkein hallinto-oikeus (Finland) lodged on 8 May 2008 — TeliaSonera Finland Oyj

(Case C-192/08)

(2008/C 197/12)

Language of the case: Finnish

Referring court

Korkein hallinto-oikeus

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: TeliaSonera Finland Oyj

Defendants: Viestintävirasto, iMEZ Ab

Questions referred

1.

Is Article 4(1) of Directive 2002/19/EC (1) of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 March 2002 on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities (Access Directive), when read in conjunction with recitals 5, 6 and 8 in the preamble to that directive and with Article 8 and Article 5 thereof, to be interpreted as meaning that:

1 (a)

national legislation may provide, as in Paragraph 39(1) of the Finnish Communications Market Law, that any telecommunications operator has an obligation to negotiate on interconnection with another telecommunications operator and, if so,

1 (b)

a national regulatory authority can take the view that the obligation to negotiate has not been complied with where a telecommunications operator which does not have significant market power has offered another operator interconnection under conditions which the authority regards as wholly unilateral and likely to hinder the emergence of a competitive market at the retail level, where they have hindered in practice the second operator from offering its customers the opportunity to transmit multimedia messages to end-users subscribed to the telecommunications operator's network and, if so,

1 (c)

the national regulatory authority can in its decision require the aforementioned telecommunications operator, which therefore does not have significant market power, to negotiate in good faith on the interconnection of text and multi-media communications services between operators' systems in such a way that, in commercial negotiations, regard must be had to the objectives which interconnection seeks to achieve and negotiations must be based on the premiss that the operation of SMS and MMS services between operators' systems can be made subject to reasonable conditions so that users have the possibility of using telecommunications operators' communications services?

2.

Do the nature of iMEZ Ab's network and whether iMEZ Ab should be regarded as a public electronic communications networks operator have any bearing on the assessment of the questions set out above?

(1)  OJ 2002 L 108, p. 7.