The European Union (EU) has finally agreed to a preliminary deal to end mobile roaming charges within the next couple of years.
This means that travelers would no longer have to pay hefty roaming charges for calls, text messages and data while moving across the 28 nations that are members of the EU. At the same time, this deal should also allow Internet users to access content without facing slower speeds or blocked content.
Previously, the European Parliament voted to ditch roaming charges across the EU by the end of 2015, but the European Council wanted to delay this move until the end of 2018. The new preliminary deal now finds some common ground, aiming to scrap roaming charges by June 2017.
Nearly two years after the European Commission's proposal for a single telecoms market, the European Parliament and European Council have now reached this compromise after final negotiations. This new deal will see the end of roaming charges within the EU by June 2017, which means that consumers traveling across the EU will pay the same mobile prices as they do at home, without facing additional fees. At the same time, the deal also involves net neutrality rules designed to protect Europeans' access to Internet access without discrimination.
"Europeans have been calling and waiting for the end of roaming charges as well as for net neutrality rules. They have been heard," Andrus Ansip, Commission Vice President for the Digital Single Market, says in a press release on Tuesday, June 30. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to create a Digital Single Market. Our plans to make it happen were fully endorsed by Heads of State and Government last week, and we should move faster than ever on this."
Günther H. Oettinger, Digital Economy and Society Commissioner, further adds that this new agreement is a crucial milestone, essential in the current digital economy and society in Europe.
Targeting this June 2017 deadline for abolishing mobile roaming charges, the deal also involves a transition phase set to commence in April 2016. At that point, some consumers will already enjoy four times lower charges.
This deal still needs approval from EU nations and the full parliament, but it marks a crucial step forward in the right direction. If all goes smoothly, roaming charges within the EU will be a thing of the past in two years' time.
