European Parliament Votes To Cap Roaming Charges

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

25 May 2007

The European Parliament, at its plenary session in Strasbourg on Wednesday, voted with a strong majority in favour of an EU Regulation to substantially reduce the charges for using mobile phones abroad.

This EU Regulation, which the European Commission proposed on 12 July 2006, was broadly supported by representatives of the 27 EU Member States last week. It is expected to enter into force in mid-June.

"Today is a good day for consumers and business travellers in the EU," EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding announced on Wednesday. She continued:

"In a record time of only 10 months, a political agreement could be reached on the EU Roaming Regulation, thanks to the impressive support of the European Parliament and the negotiation skills of the German Presidency. This means that already from this summer, mobile phone customers will start benefiting from substantially reduced roaming charges when travelling from one EU country to another. Europe's internal market will finally become truly borderless, even for mobile phone bills."

In July 2006, the European Commission proposed an EU Regulation to reduce mobile roaming charges within the EU by up to 70%, as an instrument to complete the internal market.

According to the EC:

"Despite the Commission's repeated calls to mobile operators, using mobile phones in other EU countries remains on average 4 times more expensive than domestic mobile phone calls – a difference particularly felt by tourists, and small and medium-sized companies with cross-border business activities. A consumer website on roaming tariffs from across the EU, a Commission led-transparency initiative, exposed flagrant roaming prices of up to 12 euro for a 4-minute call, but did not change the pricing behaviour of mobile operators. The Commission therefore proposed to intervene with regulations."

The EU Regulation approved this week by the European Parliament will, from this summer, cap mobile roaming charges both among mobile operators and for consumers, while encouraging competition below these price caps. These price caps (also called "Eurotariff") will be further reduced in 2008 and 2009.

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