The EU parliament votes to abolish roaming charges by December 2015

The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of ending mobile phone roaming fees on Thursday, a move that will frustrate telecom companies.

“Today’s vote is a great step towards strengthening the telecommunications single market. Parliament wants to abolish retail roaming charges for voice, SMS and data by 15 December 2015 and improve radio spectrum management to develop 4G and 5G throughout Europe”, said rapporteur Pilar del Castillo Vera (EPP, ES).

Ms del Castillo’s report was approved by 534 votes to 25, with 58 abstentions.

Lawmakers backed legislation that will phase out roaming fees across the 28-country European Union by 15 December 2015. If roaming services are abused, however, capped charges could exceptionally be imposed.

At the same time, the parliament voted in favour of maintaining “net neutrality”, effectively declaring that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, regardless of the source or the content.

Internet access providers will be barred from blocking or slowing down selected services for economic or other reasons by the latest draft EU “telecoms package” legislation.

“We have achieved further guarantees to maintain the openness of the Internet by ensuring that users can run and provide applications and services of their choice as well as reinforcing the Internet as a key driver of competitiveness, economic growth, jobs, social development and innovation”, Pilar del Castillo Vera added.

The European Parliament voted on its first reading of the draft legislation, in order to consolidate the work done so far and hand it over to the next Parliament. This ensures that the MEPs newly elected in May can build on work done during the current term.