The Council of the EU and the European Parliament have reached an agreement to extend for ten years, until 2032, the abolition of roaming charges for mobile communications between EU countries.
“Enhancing roaming rules will ensure that people can continue to make calls, send text messages and browse the Internet while traveling to other EU countries without fear of being charged,” the council said in a statement. noting that the repeal, which took effect in June 2017, was originally scheduled to expire in June 2022.
The Vice President of the Committee on the Digital Age, Margaret Westeyer, welcomed the political agreement reached by the European Parliament and the EU Member States, saying: “From 2017 we benefit from the abolition of roaming charges. “And today we have ensured that we can maintain these benefits for another 10 years, so that we can stay connected and make calls, send messages and surf the internet at no extra cost when traveling in the EU.”
According to the Commission, the new rules will extend the benefits of “domestic roaming” for travelers until 2032 and introduce additional benefits and protection for consumers:
Consumers will benefit during their travels from accessing roaming services of the same quality as when used in their country of origin. Consumers who typically have 5G in-house services will also be able to enjoy 5G services while roaming, where available.
In addition, the new regulation ensures that citizens will have increased free access to emergency communications that will enable them to locate the caller. Operators will ensure that citizens are aware of access to emergency services through 112, the single European emergency number, and other alternative means of access, such as real-time text or available applications, for people with disabilities. disabilities.
Lower wholesale fees are set. These are costs incurred by mobile operators in the host country, in exchange for access to their respective networks, ensuring that hosted mobile operators and their customers benefit from roaming services abroad. Wholesale ceilings are set at levels that ensure that operators can afford and recover the cost of providing roaming services to consumers at domestic prices. Lower wholesale charges are to the benefit of consumers, as they are expected to ensure that all operators will are able to offer competitive roaming subscriptions under the “domestic charge roaming” principle.
The interim agreement reached today is subject to approval by the Council and the plenary of the European Parliament.
For the Council, the Slovenian Presidency intends to submit the agreement to the Council Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) for approval on 15 December.
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