On Tuesday evening 31 January, the European Parliament and Council are expected to reach an agreement on wholesale market roaming costs. According to our information, the co-legislators are expected to more or less return to the ceiling initially proposed by the Commission and introduce a digressive band over a number of years.
The 2015/2120 regulation calls for an end to surcharges invoiced by telephone operators during visits to another member state as from June 2017 (retail roaming). To this end, Parliament and the Council will at first need to reach an agreement on wholesale prices that operators apply between themselves for using their network when a user travels within the EU (see EUROPE 11573).
In a letter drafted on 27 January, Vice President Andrus Ansip called on his co-legislators to demonstrate flexibility. In the letter quoted by Reuters, he explains, “if no agreement is concluded, people will quite rightly question our common resolve and ability to keep our promises. This is a risk that we should not take”.
A few hours after the meeting, the parties were relatively optimistic. According to our information, the compromise is expected to seek a balance between the position of the Council and Parliament. It should be recalled that when the Commission proposed a ceiling set at €8.5 per gigabyte of data sent, the industry committee at the end of November called for much lower limits: the report by Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (S&D, Finland) recommends a digressive ceiling of at least €4 per gigabyte in 2017, €3/gigabyte in 2018, €2/gigabyte in 2019 and €1/gigabyte between 2020 and 2022 (see EUROPE 11678). The Council had more difficulties in reaching a position insofar as the member states’ respective situations are very different to one another: countries in the south have high levels of tourism and were calling for relatively high ceilings, while countries in the north, where numerous unlimited download offers exist, were calling for quite low ceilings. Finally, ministers reached an agreement to change the maximum price of €10 per gigabyte mid-2017 to €5 per gigabyte mid-2021 (see EUROPE 11681). 13 countries, however, (Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden), however, called for the lowest ceilings. The Council also called for a sustainability clause to allow operators that fail to break even to apply surcharges. The total price imposed on another operator cannot exceed €8.5 per gigabyte (a ceiling average envisaged for the first three years).
It is therefore quite likely that the compromise will opt for a downward band. This could possibly begin at € 8.5 per gigabyte in 2017, to finish at €3 in 2020, together with a sustainability clause. As we went to press, the meeting was still in progress. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)