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LONDON — Just as the United States takes steps to secure people’s unfettered access to the Internet, Europe may soon backtrack on its own proposals.

The idea of so-called net neutrality — or the concept that everyone should have equal access to all online content — will again take center stage on Thursday as politicians from the 28-member bloc meet to discuss how the rules should be put into effect across the region.

In the United States, President Obama recently called on the Federal Communications Commission to adopt rules that would stop broadband companies from slowing down certain types of online content. The European Parliament outlined similar rules earlier this year.

Now, though, some European lawmakers are pushing to loosen the rules somewhat, allowing companies to potentially charge for faster access to their networks.

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A draft proposal circulated among the members of the European Union, released by European Digital Rights, a Brussels-based advocacy group, would remove the strict definition of net neutrality from new European telecom legislation that is expected to be finalized sometime next year.

The proposal, circulated by Italy, which currently holds the six-month presidency of the European Union, suggests allowing broadband and telecom companies to manage traffic across their networks (and potentially offer faster speeds to companies that are willing to pay a premium) as long as they provide a minimal level of access for all online content.

The suggestions, which still must be worked out among individual countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission, come as the region’s Internet service providers are lobbying hard to weaken Europe’s original net neutrality proposals.

Telecom companies like Vodafone of Britain and Orange of France are concerned that the current proposals would not allow them to charge for improved access to their networks to generate revenue that they say is needed to upgrade Europe’s Internet infrastructure.

The rules proposed by the Parliament include amendments intended to provide a strict definition of net neutrality, so that telecom companies and other Internet service providers could not discriminate between different services that run on their data networks.

And even while some European lawmakers are moving to alter the region’s net neutrality proposals, others continue to push strong rules.

“All the traffic has to be treated equally,” Andrus Ansip, the new digital chief at the European Commission, told Reuters this week when asked about the potential watering down of Europe’s net neutrality rules. “The Internet has to stay open for everybody.”