La réduction des frais d'itinérance soumise au vote du Parlement[en] 

When making mobile calls from other European countries, consumers have to pay so-called roaming fees for using local operators' network installations. These fees are sometimes surprisingly high - up to €5 per minute - and swept up to €8.5 billion into mobile operator's cash registers in 2006 alone, according to Commission estimates.

Shortly before the 2006 holiday season, the Commission came forward with a draft Regulation , which effectively limited roaming charges to €0.49 per minute for placing a call and €0.16,5 per minute for receiving calls. Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding pledged to cut in on roaming prices before the 2007 holiday season.

In Parliament, many MEPs opposed these caps as not going far enough. The governments of Mediterranean countries (whose mobile operators make billions every year from calls placed by tourists from further North) and of Britain (home of Vodafone, Europe's biggest mobile operator) opposed the caps on completely different grounds, arguing that they were too low.

In parallel with discussions in Parliament's committees, delegations form the Council, the Commission and the Parliament held so-called trialogue meetings in order to reach agreement on a mutually acceptable text in time for the 2007 summer holidays.

After several rounds of talks, negotiators from the three EU institutions came to a compromise which was supported almost unanimously by the Parliament's industry committee on 22 May.

The compromise is made up of one single 15-page amendment, which addresses all of the issues that where debated since the Commission came up with its initial proposal. In one of the most hotly contested issues during the negotiations, it was finally agreed that operators would have to lower roaming tariffs for all users, not just for those who have requested it (opt-in vs. opt-out debate), three months after the entry into force of the Regulation.

According to the compromise, roaming tariffs will be lowered in three steps:

• Outgoing calls would be capped at €0.49 cent (€0.24 for incoming calls), immediately after the regulation is published in the Official Journal.
• 1 year later (2008), the cap would be lowered to €0.46 (€0.22 for incoming calls).
• 1 year later (2009), it would we lowered again to €0.43 (€0.19 for incoming calls).

At the same time, the wholesale rate that network operators charge each other to connect a call would be limited to €0.30 a minute in the first year and lowered to €0.26 in 2009.

However, numerous mobile phone operators across Europe have already introduced special rates for people who travel a lot. In many cases, those rates are lower than required by the new EU Regulation.

The GSM Association (GSMA), which represents more than 700 mobile operators around the world, has warned that consumers should not celebrate yet as phone companies could be forced to increase domestic charges in order to make up the shortfall.

"We're disappointed. The price caps are very low. They leave no room for competition below those levels. They will become the standard tariff," said David Pringle, spokesman for the GSMA. 

He said that the proposal "smacks of a planned economy-style approach to the market", and added that informing all customers of their tariff choices would be a "huge exercise in logistics".