Dempsey Calls on European Commission to Act Immediately to Protect Consumers from High Roaming Charges

Mr Noel Dempsey TD, Minister for Communications Marine and Natural Resources today called on the European Commission to push ahead with its proposal to protect consumers from excessive roaming charges, despite considerable opposition from other EU States on the issue.

Speaking at a meeting of European Telecommunications Ministers in Brussels today Minister Dempsey said: “For too long consumers have been getting a raw deal on roaming charges. This has to stop. The Commission has now come up with a proposal that will ensure significant and sustainable price reductions across Europe while still allowing a competitive market for operators. We must push this draft proposal through in the interests of Irish consumers and consumers right across Europe. It is the right thing to do.”

In July this year the European Commission brought forward a draft proposal for a regulation on roaming on public mobile networks within the European Community. The proposal provides for the establishment of common, Community-wide maximum price limits on the charges that mobile network operators may levy for the wholesale provision of mobile roaming services for mobile voice calls made from a visited network in the community. The proposal also provides for safeguard price limits at the retail level. Furthermore the proposal promotes transparency for retail charges by introducing an obligation on mobile providers to give personalised information on retail reaming charges to their roaming customers on request and free of charge.

In March 2006, Ireland through An Taoiseach, succeeded in ensuring that the European Council noted in its conclusions the importance of reducing roaming charges in the context of European competitiveness.

Currently a number of EU Member States, led by the UK and France, have registered significant objections to the draft Commission proposal.

Minister Dempsey added “The Commission’s proposal strikes the right balance between administrative simplicity for consumers and flexibility for operators.”

“The issue of high roaming charges is one that I take very seriously and one that I raised at my first Telecoms Council meeting when I took over this brief. I have repeatedly made my position on this issue known to the telecommunications sector in Ireland and I have called for action by them to reduce costs to the consumer in this area. I took the opportunity to again reiterate my position at a meeting of telecoms leaders in Dublin last week. Earlier this year I was very encouraged when operators in Ireland introduced tariff initiatives to address the issue of Northern Ireland roaming following a direct call from me to do so. There was a very positive response from consumers to this initiative and I hope that we can again see similar movement at a European level on this issue.”

ENDS