European Union finally makes official the disappearance of roaming in June 2017

After so much to-ing and fro-ing, the European Council has finally approved the new rules that will put an end to the surcharges for using a mobile phone in another EU country. As a preview, from April next year, there will be a drop in tariffs.

This decision has been adopted as an item without discussion in the Competitiveness Council of Ministers and, on this occasion, in a unanimous manner. The European Parliament should then adopt the text at its plenary session at the end of October and, by November "probably", it will be published in the Official Journal of the EU and will enter into force three days later.

On June 30, Council and Euro negotiators reached the final endorsed agreement. Under the new legislation, surcharges for calling, texting or surfing the Internet via mobile phone in a Member State other than the operator's home state are due to disappear on June 15, 2017.

Operators may apply a "fair use policy" to "avoid abusive use of 'roaming", which refers to avoiding these services for "other purposes" than "periodic travel".

The  roaming will continue until December 2017, but until then, and from next April 30, there will be a generalized lowering of rates. According to the approved project, the (wholesale) price per minute of call cannot be higher than 0.05 euros. Each SMS can cost at most 0.02 euros and the price of each megabyte of data for Internet connections will be capped at 0.05 euros. VAT must be added to all these rates.

In addition, operators will have to treat all traffic on an equal footing, although they may apply reasonable management measures, according to the new regulations. Blocking or throttling of content will only be allowed in limited circumstances, for example to prevent cyber-attacks or traffic congestion.