Brussels, 11/07/2005 (Agence Europe) - The spokesperson for Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for the information society and the media, announced on Monday that the Commission would give a “warning” to EU consumers, mainly tourists and business leaders, about the costs in using mobile phones abroad (“roaming”). He declared that the prices were always unjustifiably high. The Commission was seeking to make prices more transparent. She announced that in collaboration with the group of European regulators (ERG), and the publication for autumn 2005 of a special Internet site that will give examples of tariff details proposed by EU operators to the 25 Member States. It trusts that the initiative will encourage operators to offer more affordable and fairer prices to consumers.
Viviane Reding's spokesperson added that European regulators will continue to analyse the practices of mobile telephone operators and did not rule out “ex ante regulatory measures” by the end of the year in the context of the telecommunication legislative package. Asked about the possibility of imposing a single tariff at European level after the fashion of bank transfers in the euro zone, he said that European operators may apply a “reasonable price” for travellers who use their networks while admitting that there is a “problem in the context of the internal market”. Nonetheless, “it is not up to the Commission to say what the fair price is”, he explained. He wished to recall that this only concerns a segment of the telecommunications market and that the prices of national mobile telephony and high debit use have fallen. The cost of calling from abroad to one's country of origin varies considerably from one country to the next within the European Union, a Commission press release states. These prices range from 58 euro centimes the minute for a call from Cyprus to Finland with a Finnish subscription, to 5,01 euros the minute for a call from Malta to Poland with a Polish subscription.
Regarding aspects linked to European competition legislation, Neelie Kroes' spokesperson recalled that, further to a sectoral inquiry launched in 2000, procedures had been launched against two German companies, Vodafone and T-Mobiel, and two British companies, Vodafone and O2 (see EUROPE 8755 and 8886). “These cases are still under investigation”, he said, explaining that, for now, there are no proceedings envisaged against other companies with regard to European competition rules. On the subject of sector-specific inquiries, he pointed out that no decision has been taken concerning new initiatives in this field and that, in any event, none are likely before end 2005.