Tag Archives: European Parliament

Judith Merkies MEP calls for action

Dutch member of the European parliament Judith Merkies (who now also supports our mission) has started a write-in campaign for lower roaming charges.

Ms Merkies who sits on the key committee ITRE stated: “Kroes’ proposal is way too cautious. We have a single market in Europe, haven’t we? Then why these high costs? I want to eliminate the differences between national and international rates as soon as possible.”

Merkies prefers more ambitious plans than those of Commissioner Kroes. Her goal is to completely abolish roaming charges until 2014: “From then on, it doesn’t make a difference if you call from another EU member state to Amsterdam, Lisbon or Berlin.”

Support Merkies; call Kroes and MEPs for action
To support her plans, Merkies calls for action: click here to send a direct e-mail to Members of the European Parliament or retweet the tweet posted below

Fed up with high roaming costs? RT this to @NeelieKroesEU, says @judithmerkies. Or e-mail MEPs: http://bit.ly/wE5a83 #stoproamingnow

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[Press Release] The EU must put an end to high roaming charges!

Europe’s millions of smartphone customers will continue to face rip-off data roaming prices unless Europe’s institutions take real action now.

  • Europe’s politicians and institutions have a matter of weeks to take action over high data roaming prices or consumers risk a decade of rip-off prices simply for using their smartphones abroad.
  • The European Parliament’s draft proposal will still leave data roaming charges at over 25x domestic prices.
  • Europeans for Fair Roaming calls on Europe’s politicians to put an end to data roaming fear by voting for fair roaming prices that protect Europe’s smartphone customers, not punish them. Continue reading

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Our demands for fair roaming regulation

While many of the proposed amendments to the new EU roaming regulation are going in the right direction, the discussed price caps are still much too high. The retail price caps for mobile phone users must be set at lower levels than what is currently proposed:

  • No more than 11ct for calls made by 2014
  • Free receiving of calls from 2014 on
  • No more than 10ct/MB for data by 2014

Furthermore, the EU is risking to destroy the business of small operators that wish to enter the roaming market and make attractive offers for roaming if too high hurdles are introduced. We therefore demand the non-discrimination of small and virtual operators accessing roaming services, lower price caps (especially for internet access), free receiving of calls, concrete plans for a more integrated European telecommunications market, and more. For more details, please have a look at our position paper: Roaming Improvements.

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Arlene McCarthy MEP endorses our call

 We are happy to announce that Arlene McCarthy, Labour MEP for North West England has endorsed Europeans for Fair Roaming and our demand for lower roaming fees in the EU. Ms McCarthy is a long serving member of the European Parliament and former chair of the influential Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and current vice-chair of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. In her endorsement, she stated: “I work with my colleagues on the responsible committees now to ensure we continue to enforce and improve the consumer protection measures in place for users of roaming services.”

Please also visit her website at: http://www.arlenemccarthy.labour.co.uk/

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