Government in favour of better roaming tariffs

The government has announced that last week at a meeting of the Council of the European Union, it voted in favour of its proposal to immediately continue the process that would lead to Maltese consumers enjoying better mobile phone tariffs when they are travelling in EU countries.

The government believes that when people use mobile phones while they are abroad in another EU country, they should pay the same rate as they do in their own country.

“Various established mobile phone operators in Malta have already started offering special schemes that consumers can choose rather than pay normal roaming tariffs,” the government maintained.

“However, it is currently impossible to remove surcharges, due to wholesale roaming rates that operators charge each other when their clients use mobile phones abroad.”

The government said that given the council’s proposal, the Commission should review these wholesale rates in order to begin the process of ending roaming rates.

“The Council of the European Union wishes there to be a more immediate drop in prices, since the process requires technical analysis to ensure that none of the countries are negatively effected,” it continued.

The government also reported that the council has proposed that roaming rates are dropped anyway to ensure that there is only a small surcharge to cover wholesale charges. This surcharge only applies when a basic roaming allowance without any extra payments is chosen.

According to the government, discussions between the council and the European parliament with the participation of the commission, are expected to begin in the coming weeks to ensure that an agreement to the benefit of consumers is reached as soon as possible.

Last week Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola joined MEPs from across the political divide to send a letter to all EU Telecommunications Ministers, appealing to them not to postpone the end to mobile phone roaming charges, earlier today.

"The move by some governments to postpone the end of unjustifiable mobile phone roaming fees across the European Union is unacceptable and is a setback to consumers across the continent," Metsola said.

Metsola is a Member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and has long called for an end to roaming fees in Europe.

"Last year, the European Parliament adopted a report calling for roaming charges to end by 15th December of this year. We are now seeing attempts by governments to backtrack and attempt to delay the end of the charges by a longer number of years,” Metsola said.

“This demonstrates lack of ambition. Roaming charges are part of an outdated business model and have no place in today's connected Europe. We need to ensure Europe has a true Digital Single Market."

"Important net neutrality principles should likewise not be weakened. We need to be determined to ensure that any legislation we have is fully in tune with the reality of the times," she added.