By Anne-France White - 8th October 2006
The European commission’s plans to slash international roaming charges lack a legal basis, a German think tank has argued.
In a legal opinion published on October 9, the Freiburg Centre for European Politics (CEP) says the plans cannot be justified by the need to open up the internal market.
Telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding plans to cut the price of international calls by introducing a compulsory cap on roaming prices, and is expected to put forward her proposal in December.
The legislation is based on article 95 of the EU treaty, which gives the EU to right to harmonize different national rules when they get in the way of the internal market.
“Since the member states do not have any laws on roaming, these laws cannot be harmonised,” argued CEP director Lüder Gerken. “The EU therefore does not have any competence for the proposed roaming directive.”
The commission, which has broad support from MEPs, is keen to push its legislation through by next summer as a sign of its commitment to improving the life of EU citizens.
It is widely agreed that roaming charges are unreasonably high, and Reding says the new rules will drive prices down by up to 70 per cent.
But the plans are being resisted by the industry, which argues that the commission is going too far and is setting a dangerous precedent of extensive intervention into retail prices.
The trade association for mobile operators recently asked EU ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros to investigate the proposals, arguing that they have not been properly consulted on the plans.
The CEP report is not the first time the industry has questioned the legality of the EU’s roaming plans – in July, mobile giant Vodafone said it would not rule out taking the matter to the European court if the proposals were not watered down significantly by the time they become law.
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