Roaming at no additional cost - The Council stops its position on the pursuit and revision of this policy

The EU is currently preparing a legislative act aimed at ensuring that, at the expiration of the current regulation concerning homelessness (June 30, 2022), citizens can continue to make calls, send SMS and surf the webWhen they are traveling in other EU countries, without fear of a bad surprise upon receipt of their invoice.The ambassadors of the Member States approved today a negotiation mandate in order to extend the roaming system under national conditions, which came into force in 2017.

In particular, the regulations revised on homelessness aims to adapt the maximum wholesale prices in order to guarantee the viability for operators, in the whole of the EU, of the retail supply of roaming services to national prices.

In addition, the proposal introduces new measures to increase transparency as to value -added services, and aims to guarantee good customer experience concerning the quality of the service and access to emergency services.

Another important aspect is to ensure that the regulations take into account the repercussions of the covid-19 pandemic and the changes which result from it in the travel and tourism sector as well as in terms of increased work at home andremote meetings, which have an impact on homelessness consumption.The proposal also takes into account the deployment of 5G while Europe is at the dawn of a fundamental technological evolution and that, for the moment, we do not yet have data on the costs linked to the supply5G services, in particular homeless data services.

Advice mandate

The advice has improved the accessibility of emergency services for people with special needs and has added rules to protect consumers from exorbitant invoices due to involuntary roaming on satellite networks during a ferry journeyor by plane.

The text of the Council also specifies the role of the various competent authorities in the execution of tasks arising from the regulations.

Procedure

The mandate of this day has been approved by the ambassadors gathered within the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Council (Coreper).It will allow the presidency of the council to start negotiations with the European Parliament as soon as the latter has its mandate.The Council and the European Parliament will both have to agree on the final text.