The State Radiocommunications Agency… in the air

Created by General Telecommunications Law 32/2003, the Draft General Law on Audiovisual Communication, of January 5, 2010, established, for the first time, June 1, 2010 as the deadline for the constitution of the State Radiocommunications Agency... or was it a "transcription error"? With its creation in the air, Barcelona, ​​Vigo, Valencia and Seville would emerge as an alternative to Madrid to host its headquarters.

The State Radiocommunications Agency was created by virtue of article 47 of General Telecommunications Law 32/2003, with the objective of improving the management of the radio-electronic public domain, both in its aspects of efficiency and harmonization of uses, and access to radioelectric resources. Attached to the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce through the Secretary of State for Telecommunications and the Information Society, its purpose would be the execution of the management of the public radio domain.

Among its competencies would be the proposal for planning, management and administration of the public radio domain, as well as the processing and granting of enabling titles for its use. It would also have powers in the inspection of radioelectric installations in relation to permitted emission levels, identifying and locating harmful interference and disturbances to radiocommunication systems. As initially planned, the Agency, even without sanctioning power, would also propose the initiation of sanctioning proceedings, being also competent to write studies and reports and advise the General Administration of the State on everything related to the management of the public radio domain.

Despite such a detailed framework, the reality is that seven years later the State Radiocommunications Agency is still up in the air. The last attempt to promote it was reflected in the Draft General Law on Audiovisual Communication, of January 5, 2010. Curiously, while in the text published in the Official Gazette of the Cortes Generales of January 25, it was stated that "the effective constitution of the State Radiocommunications Agency will take place before June 1, 2010 at the time of approval of its Statute", days later the text was incomprehensibly modified to make this date disappear.

An Agency in eternal waiting

Approved in 2003, its date of incorporation was set by the Draft General Law on Audiovisual Communication and subsequently withdrawn from the final text due to a “transcription error”… the truth is that today it is not known where or when the State Radiocommunications Agency will begin to operate. To find an answer to this chaos, we would have to go back four years when the Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT), due to the political game, moved, with total opposition from its workers and practically overnight, to Barcelona. Following this decentralizing line, while the Presidency would be in favor of the new Agency having its headquarters in Madrid, Industry is considering other cities such as Barcelona (headquarters of the CMT), Vigo, Valencia or Seville. Faced with this possibility, the staff of the Secretary of State for Telecommunications (SETSI) see their jobs in danger and are agitated by the possibility that a new political scam like the one that caused the transfer of the CMT will end up locating the Agency, which plans to employ some 200 professionals, outside of Madrid.

With the draft of the General Law on Audiovisual Communication in parliamentary process, now in the Senate and once the amendment period has closed, everything seems to indicate that the date of June 1 of this year would remain up in the air, there is even talk of 2015 coinciding with the distribution of the digital dividend.

Meanwhile, in the midst of this legislative mess and balancing between regional and central government powers, hundreds of pirate radio and television stations continue broadcasting at will less than a month before the blackout... who will put the collar on the cat?