Euro-MPs clear the air for slashing mobile roaming rates

(STRASBOURG) - European tourists and business people should see lower mobile phone bills in coming months after EU lawmakers on Wednesday backed rules slashing the cost of cross-border calls by up to 70 percent.

EU mobile phone users no longer need to fear getting bills "greater than the cost of their flights or hotel room" when they travel within the European Union, said Austrian euro-deputy and the package's rapporteur Paul Ruebig.

With a show of hands, an overwhelming majority of lawmakers at the European Parliament voted in favour of the hotly disputed measures, which have been in the works for more than a year.

The parliament's backing clears the way for EU telecommunications ministers to rubber stamp the measures at a June 7 meeting in Luxembourg so that the cheaper rates come into effect over the summer travel period.

Welcoming the vote, EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said: "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," she added.

After long negotiations, representatives of the parliament and member states thrashed out a compromise earlier this month to cap roaming rates between EU countries for three years.

The European Commission first drew up proposals to regulate roaming rates last year after it found evidence of huge variations between operators' prices, with some roaming calls costing up to six times those of local mobile calls.

The final compromise would limit the price operators can charge EU subscribers for making cross-border calls within the 27-nation bloc at 49 euro cents (66 US cents) a minute in the first year of application while receiving a call could cost no more than 24 cents.

The ceiling for roaming services would then drop again in the second year, falling to 46 and 22 cents and then 43 and 19 cents in the third year.

According to data from September provided by the parliament, the average retail roaming rate is 1.15 euros per minute, five times the cost to operators for providing the service.

However, variations between member states can be huge with a four-minute call for a French customer travelling in Italy costing 4.72 euros while a four-minute call by a Cypriot in Belgium can set a user back 12.00 euros (16.2 dollars).

The industry argues that fierce competition has already driven down prices and has lobbied hard for the package to be watered down while at the same time consumers associations have said the limits do not go far enough.

After the parliament's vote, the GSMA industry association slammed the new rules as "inappropriate and unprecedented on the basis of the principles of a market economy."

"These proposals are designed to further a narrow, short-term and populist agenda and run counter to the wider interests of consumers, the business community and ultimately the European Union," GSMA chief executive Rob Conway said.

The BEUC European consumers association was only slightly less critical, saying in a statement: "Unfortunately, the price caps are still too high and are not linked to the actual costs for operators.

"However, there will be more transparency for everyone and most consumers will not have to take any action to benefit automatically from the reduced rates," it added.

Although the new rules could technically go into effect as soon as mid-July, their application could be pushed back to the end of the summer or early autumn as they are translated, officially published and customers notified.

The Commission's aim from the beginning has been to have the regulations in place in time for the peak European summer travel period.

Further details - European Parliament