At a press conference held today, Commissioner Vivane Reding, flanked by Kip Meek of Ofcom, currently chairman of the European Regulators Group (ERG), confirmed the intention of the European Commission to seek the adoption of a Regulation on international mobile roaming charges in the EU.

After weeks of discussion, some preliminary details on the exact nature of the proposed regulatory interventions were made public. They are as follows:

� Cost-orientation of wholesale charges applicable between mobile network operators. The exact wording of the announcement is: “The EU regulation would ensure that operators do not charge operators from other countries substantially more than the actual cost”.

� Retail tariff regulation is deemed necessary: “…to ensure that operator savings at the wholesale level are actually passed on to consumers”.

No further details were released on the nature or extent of the retail regulations envisaged, but the goals to be achieved were expressed as follows:

Receiving calls abroad:

“The new EU regulation could in particular eliminate all roaming charges for receiving a call when traveling abroad in the EU”.

Making calls abroad:

“The new EU regulation could introduce the �home pricing� principle. A mobile customer travelling abroad in the EU would always be charged only the prices that he is used to paying in his country of residence: he would either pay a local tariff when making a local call, regardless of where he is traveling in the EU (e.g. for calling a cab while traveling in Madrid); or a normal international tariff for calls made to EU destinations, regardless of where he is traveling in the EU (e.g. for calling the family back home while on holidays)”.

An additional period of consultation on these proposals has been opened. The deadline for responses is 28 April 2006.

Note: The ERG released its own position today, and it differs from what is suggested by the European Commission, in that it envisages regulation only at the wholesale level, combined with measures to achieve retail pricing transparency, but not retail price regulation as such (at least not initially - retail price regulation is retained as a reserve option in case of failure of the other envisaged measures).

The full text of the European Commission’s press release on international mobile roaming charges can be accessed by clicking here.

The full text of the ERG’s response of the ERG to the Commission’s consultation has also been published, and can be accessed by clicking here.