Last month the European Parliament’s industry committee voted in favour of compulsory reductions of cross-border mobile tariffs which were far stricter than what the European Commission proposed (see table) and what most national governments would prefer.
MEPs and Danish officials, who currently hold the EU’s rotating presidency and as such represent national governments, held discussions yesterday (15 March) to reconcile the differences.
Socialist MEP Robert Goebbels (Luxembourg), who was in attendance, said the Danish ambassador “gave some indications about the wholesale prices he is targeting personally but the Parliament delegation said immediately that these prices are much too high.”
The office of German MEP Angelika Niebler, who drafted the proposal, said “It’s obvious that member states have a different idea of the price caps than Parliament.”
Danish diplomats are seeking a mandate for a common position amongst EU member states for negotiations with MEPs. A compromise is expected to be found at another meeting scheduled for 27 March.
‘No material risk’ costs will exceed caps
Last month, the association of the EU’s 27 national telecoms regulators (BEREC) issued a report which found that costs for providing data and phone roaming services were likely to be far below the price caps proposed by the Commission.
“There is no material risk that costs in earlier years will come close to exceeding the caps that have been proposed, either by the Commission or in the [industry] Committee discussions,” it said.
The report’s “cautious estimates” said that by 2014 costs would be €0.05 a minute for voice calls, €0.01 for text messages, and €0.05 per megabyte of data. These are identical to the parliamentary draft’s proposed caps by that year.
Compromise ‘somewhere in the middle’
Both MEPs and EU diplomats expressed confidence that a compromise would be found before the end of June, when the existing regulation on roaming caps expires. It is unclear which side will give way more.
Belgian diplomat Patrick Lamot said the compromise "will be somewhere in the middle. It’s psychological. It’s not possible at the beginning of a negotiation to say ‘our position will not change’.”
“From the Belgian perspective, we support to the fullest extent the idea of reducing prices,” he said.
A middling compromise would disappoint some activists however. Bengt Beier of the Europeans for Fair Roaming Campaign said a midway position between the two proposals would mean “prices that are three or four times higher than what is economically viable.”
“It’s a real let-down that the Council decided to defend the interests of some big telecom companies and not the users,” he said.
EU watchdog questions telecoms
Telecom providers have been increasingly attracting attention in recent weeks on competition issues.
Earlier this week, an attempt by the Italian Parliament to further liberalise telecom services spurred tough reaction.
The Financial Times reported Wednesday that the EU’s Directorate-General for Competition demanded information on meetings held by the so-called E5 group of Europe’s leading telephone provides, made up of Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, France Telecom, Telefónica and Vodaphone.
Requests for such information are sometimes a prelude to formal antitrust probes by the European Commission.
Goebbels argued the companies effectively form an oligopoly.
“These companies control well over 80% of the roaming market in the EU and they put enormous pressure on policymakers to avoid measures which would bring competition and lower prices,” he said.
A September 2010 Eurobarometer poll found that “an overwhelming 72% of mobile users continue to limit their mobile voice calls while abroad because they are concerned about the costs.”
