Citizens of countries belonging to the European Union will be able to use all mobile services for the same prices as in their home country when anywhere else within the EU.
The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) on February 8 ultimately confirmed the agreement of EU institutions cancelling roaming fees from June 15 on, the Sme daily wrote.
Slovakia’s Presidency of the EU Council was responsible for the lion’s share of this agreement, Deputy Representative of the Slovak Republic to EU Alexander Micovčin said, as quoted by the daily.
Slovakia’s credit
The negotiations among EU ministers for telecommunication were led by Slovak Transport Minister Árpád Érsek and it was Slovakia who found the compromise among all 28 EU members states during its presidency. Striking the deal was not easy, as each country – as well as the telecoms companies – pushed through different values depending on different prices, Érsek told the SITA newswire.
The EU Presidency of Malta, which took over after Slovakia, concluded the negotiations with the European Parliament on February 8 and set the date for unification of fees. Limits for calls will decline from 5 euro-cents to 3.2 euro-cents per one minute, and SMS will be cheaper – 1 euro-cent against the current 2 euro-cents. The most difficult to price was mobile data; in the ends prices were set at €7.7 per 1 Gigabyte from June 2017, to decline gradually to €2.5 per Gigabyte by 2022.
The EP has still to confirm the deal, SITA wrote.
9. Feb 2017 at 14:24 | Compiled by Spectator staff
