Facing opposition in Brussels, the European Union’s telecommunications commissioner, Viviane Reding, is scaling back her proposal to create a new Europewide telecommunications agency with the power to intervene in national markets to mandate consumer-friendly changes in regulation and pricing.

Documents obtained by the International Herald Tribune show that Reding is expected on Friday to present a compromise that would reduce the staff of the new agency to 20 from 50 and give the telecommunications regulators from the 27 EU countries - most of which do not want the new overseer - an effective veto over any decisions taken by the new agency.

To read this article from the International Herald Tribune in full, see iht.com/articles/2008/10/23/technology/reding.php.