National Interests Hamper Abolition of Mobile Roaming Charges in Europe

Europe's ambition to end mobile roaming charges for citizens travelling across the continent is being stymied by some member states backing the interests of their national operators, officials say.

The European Commission, the EU executive, proposed an ambitious overhaul of the continent's telecoms market in 2013 which set out a roadmap for abolishing roaming charges.

Brussels, eager to boost its image by showing it can deliver tangible, positive results for citizens, has made ending roaming charges a banner issue.

But almost two years later the date originally envisaged for the end of roaming charges, December 2015, is off the table.

Instead, member states in the European Council have pushed the date back to mid-December 2018 and are seeking to find a compromise with lawmakers in the European Parliament who want roaming charges to be abolished by the end of next year.

A third round of negotiations, which took place on Tuesday evening, ended without a deal, two EU sources said. Expectations had been low because of the gap between the two positions.

The delay to ending roaming charges has angered the Commission, the Parliament and consumer rights organisations who say some member states are defending the interests of their national operators.

"Now it is up to the member states if they want to be the lawyer for the citizens and consumers or for the telecom companies," said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in an interview with German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Monday.

However, the interests of the telecoms operators in the 28-member bloc are not aligned.

Eastern European countries - where domestic rates are cheap - are worried that their operators will be forced to hike prices at home if roaming charges are removed prematurely, since companies pay wholesale charges to another operator when their customers travel abroad.

On the other hand, countries with a lot of incoming traffic from tourists, such as Spain and Greece, have an incentive to keep wholesale charges high.

Albeit for different reasons, the result is the same.

"Yes there are related problems such as wholesale costs between operators, however neither this nor Southern European countries' interests in the tourists who come to their shores excuse inaction," said Ursula Pachl, deputy director general for European consumer organisation BEUC.

The Parliament and member states agree on the need for a review of wholesale charges, but the former wants the review to be followed more quickly by an end to retail roaming charges.

France is among the countries blocking an earlier end date for roaming charges, an EU source said. Other countries include Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Croatia, Poland, Lithuania and Bulgaria.

© Thomson Reuters 2015