Brussels, 27/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - “A major breakthrough will have been made today in favour of consumers”, French Secretary of State Luc Chatel was pleased to tell the press, announcing the consensus reached on Thursday 27 November by the Council on the proposal for a Commission regulation on roaming services. A short while earlier, member states had, with some difficulty, exchanged views on the Telecom Package (see above). “It is a good day for citizens as they will see that Europe can act very fast on markets concerning them”, Commissioner Viviane Reding said. If the Parliament follows the Commission and Council, the new regulation will take effect in July 2009, the Commission is pleased to say, pointing out the benefits that consumers have already had since the first regulation took effect, i.e. a fall from 50 to 60% on their roaming bills. Member states thus rallied to the French Presidency's text which suggested a mid-way compromise between the position of those who wanted a still more restrictive regulation for operators (including Denmark, Finland, Belgium) and those who considered the regulation too intrusive for the market and too discouraging for investment by operators (Spain, Austria in particular). In its proposals, the Commission provided for a further 3-year extension of the current regulation that will expire in 2010, a continued fall in tariffs and extension of current coverage that only covers voice calls, to also cover SMS and data. The Council maintains the same amounts for the ceilings proposed by the Commission: - 1) for SMS, wholesale prices at a ceiling of 4 eurocents and retail prices at 11 eurocents (without VAT); 2) wholesale tariffs ceilinged at one euro per megabyte for data switch package (the Commission did not provide at this stage for a ceiling to be placed on retail prices in order to allow this emergent market to autoregulate). As far as vocal calls are concerned, the Council also rallies to the Commission's proposals, namely a continued fall in wholesale and retail prices, in several stages. The Council also agreed with the Commission about the need for billing per second for vocal calls sent and received, from the 31st second. The last point was the subject of a particular compromise with some member states wishing to invoice from the 2nd second, and others wanting to remain at billing per minute. The Presidency compromise also contains provisions for protecting consumers from “bill shocks”. Thus, all operators should give all their subscribers the possibility of deliberately, and free of charge, choosing the option “service interruption threshold”, which would warn them just before that threshold is reached in order to protect them from bills that are too high. This break-off point cannot exceed €50 (without VAT). Viviane Reding took the view that the regulation will indeed erode operators' profits but that the latter will continue to make profits. In her view, the price of SMS in roaming amounts to just 1 eurocent and the wholesale price for one megabyte amounts to 25 and 50 eurocents. The Commission's approach is therefore “very reasonable”, she said. (I.L./transl.jl)