Mobile phone customers can call, send text messages and surf the Internet in other EU countries for a further ten years at no additional cost.
This is made possible with an extension of the so-called roaming, for which the EU countries have cleared the way, as they announced on Monday. The EU Parliament and the individual governments had also agreed on the structure of free roaming.
After the MEPs had already agreed, the official approval of the EU states was still missing for the regulation to take effect.
It comes into force on July 1 and replaces the existing requirements. Since June 15, 2017, there have been no roaming charges in the 27 EU countries as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The agreement also provides for changes to the existing rules. The same quality of services should be available to consumers abroad whenever possible.
Ursula Pachl from the European consumer organization Beuc said that one of the biggest success stories for consumers in the EU continues with this enlargement and improvement.
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She criticized that messages and phone calls between EU countries can still lead to high charges if they are not covered by the roaming regulation. This can be the case, for example, if you use a mobile phone with a German number to call a connection in another EU country.
