The European Commission is giving shape to the new policy on roaming charges. On Monday 5 September, it presented a draft implementing regulation which proposes that mobile phone users who spend less than three months per year in other member states (and who do not remain outside their own country more than 30 days at a time) should not be subject to additional charges.
In line with the new feedback mechanism, stakeholders will have four weeks to submit comments.
Regulation 531/2012 stipulates that, with effect from 2017, use of a mobile telephone while in other EU countries will be charged at the same rates as in the home country, with no additional costs (roaming charges). The regulation also required the Commission to bring forward more detailed rules to prevent permanent roaming. The Commission wants, for example, to prevent people buying SIM cards in another EU country where domestic prices are lower and using it at home (for example, an Irish consumer buying a SIM card in one of the Baltic states) or people staying permanently abroad with domestic subscriptions from their home country.
The draft implementing regulation proposes that mobile phone users who spend less than three months (90 days) in another member state/other member states should not be charged extra by their phone operator, on condition that they return to the country where they took out their subscription once per year. “This is, of course, a minimum requirement”, said European Commission spokesperson Nathalie Vandystadt. The draft legislation also prevents operators from imposing lower limits on the volumes of other mobile services than those in operation in the home country. Among the other measures, the text would allow operators to impose a limited surcharge on those customers who have an unlimited subscription and who suddenly make anomalous usage of their subscription abroad. The additional charges that may potentially be applied should not exceed the ceilings proposed by the Commission for wholesale roaming, that is, four cents per minute of call, one cent per SMS and 0.85 cent per megabit of data.
The implementing proposal must now be approved by the European Parliament and by the member states before it can be adopted by the Commission before 15 December of this year. The text of the proposal can be consulted at http://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/initiatives/ares20164977189_en. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)