Brussels, 28/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 28 March Commissioner Viviane Reding officially announced that she would present a draft regulation in June to the College of Commissioner for bringing down international roaming charges. Although liberalisation of the telecommunications market has led to a reduction in fixed prices for communications (up to 70%), this trend is not being followed in roaming. In these conditions the European Commission launched a website in September 2005 comparing the different prices of mobile phone operators in an effort to inform consumers and, indirectly, obtain a price reduction in this segment of the market. Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding regretted that this evolution had not happened. The updated Commission website - shows that for a four-minute call, roaming prices still vary from as little as €0.20 to €13.05. Indeed there have been increases in certain cases, despite the threat from the Commission to regulate the sector. Although there are some examples of progress such as the operator in Belgium who introduced a flat rate for roaming, which has brought down the price from €7.20 to €4.40 for a call home while roaming in Cyprus, there are still unacceptable scenarios, underlined Ms Reding. In Greece, there is a blatant lack of transparency, where operators only publish their roaming charges for received calls. In Luxembourg, two out of three operators fail to communicate their charges clearly. Although the majority of German consumers in the United Kingdom or France spend 5.52 and 2.12 euros respectively when they call Germany from their mobiles, they do not pay more than 4.06 and 4.02 euros respectively when they call from Italy and Spain, for no apparent reason. Ms Reding exclaimed that she had informed operators on a number of occasions that they had to lower their prices but had received no reply. She added that it was unacceptable that European consumers were penalised simply because they used their mobile phones abroad. The Commission also raised the problem of competitiveness for enterprises, particularly SMEs which spent a lot of their budget on roaming charges from their employees abroad. The Commission proposals will include the following: the new EU regulation should in any event address inter-operator tariffs (wholesale prices). The EU regulation would ensure that operators do not charge operators from other countries substantially more than the actual cost; to ensure that operator savings at the wholesale level are actually passed on to the consumer, the Commission sees also a need for regulation at the retail level; the new EU regulation could in particular eliminate all roaming charges for receiving a call when travelling abroad in the EU; in addition, for calls made while travelling abroad in the EU, the new EU regulation could introduce the “home pricing” principle. A mobile customer travelling abroad in the EU would always be charged only the prices that he is used to paying in his country of residence: he would either pay a local tariff when making a local call, regardless of where he is travelling in the EU (e.g. for calling a cab while travelling in Madrid); or a normal international tariff for calls made to EU destinations, regardless of where he is travelling in the EU (e.g. for calling the family back home while on holidays). The Commission has outlined the following timetable for adoption and implementation of the regulation: second phase of consultation of interested parties to be launched on 3 April and closed on 28 April (a first phase of consultation took place on 20 February to 22 March); examination by Commissions services of the second wave of comments received to take into account in impact study; presentation in June of a draft regulation; transmission of draft adopted to Parliament and Council (in co-decision); entry into force of regulation in Summer 2007 (if the Parliament and Council follow the opinion of the Commission calling for accelerated procedures). Ms Reding is convinced that the MEPs and Member States will give it a warm welcome and that no-one is expected to oppose it. She added that she had already received a lot of positive messages from ministers.
The European Regulators Group (ERG) which brings together 25 national regulatory authorities (as well as those from candidate and EFTA countries) gave its support to the Commission proposal. Kip Meek, its president declared that they strongly supported Commissioner Reding's commitment to resolve this persistent problem and that the ERG group was eager to collaborate with Ms Reding in order to develop a practical mechanism that was balanced and swift, allowing for significant price reductions.