Germans target summer for cheaper mobile calls

Germany has made getting a deal on cutting mobile phone roaming charges a key priority during its six-month presidency of the EU, which starts next January.

Berlin is backing the proposal by Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding to cap roaming charges but wants to set the cap at only 20% above the price of domestic calls. Reding had proposed 30%.

Reding said at a telecoms conference in Brussels on 12 December: "In view of the clear commitment of the incoming German presidency to have a very ambitious roaming regulation as soon as possible, I am confident that consumers in Europe as well as business travellers will be able to benefit from substantially lower roaming tariffs in summer 2007."

EU telecoms ministers discussed the roaming proposal at a meeting in Brussels on 11 December. Reding said that "all ministers had agreed with the Commission that legislation needed to cover both the wholesale and retail level of roaming charges".

The presidency would like to get a deal at first reading with the European Parliament which could be as early as May next year. Some EU officials believe, however, that a second reading might be needed, especially if member states and MEPs want to extend the proposal to other services such as text -messaging.

There is broad support in the Council of Ministers for Reding’s proposal although the UK and France are opposing her approach. The UK argues that setting a fixed cap on roaming charges could stifle competition because operators would not be able to adjust retail prices. Instead, they are proposing a "sunrise clause" which would give phone ope-rators a deadline to cut roaming charges by a certain amount. If they failed to meet the deadline they would face binding legislation.

But Commission experts believe that setting up a system to monitor compliance would be time-consuming and extremely complicated and could take two years to check whether operators’ behaviour had changed.

France also backs the idea of giving operators a chance to change their fees and wants text messages to be included in wholesale-level price regulation.

Germany has made getting a deal on cutting mobile phone roaming charges a key priority during its six-month presidency of the EU, which starts next January.