BRUSSELS, Belgium - A proposal to cap roaming charges for mobile phone calls made abroad crossed an important hurdle Thursday when a key committee of the European Parliament voted in favor of a ceiling at 40 euro cents (54 U.S. cents) per minute for an outgoing call and 15 euro cents (20 U.S. cents) per minute for an incoming call.
The EU assembly's industry committee went further than EU member states, which proposed a cap of 52 euro cents (70 U.S. cents) and 25 euro cents (34 U.S. cents), respectively.
The EU's executive arm claims network providers are reaping massive profits from high roaming charges that can increase call costs fourfold. The cap -- opposed by the telecommunications industry -- aims to slash roaming fees by as much as 70 per cent.
The proposed ceiling, to which VAT must still be added, is "well below the prices that are currently being paid in many member states," said Paul Ruebig, an Austrian Conservative deputy charged with steering the regulation through the EU assembly.
The full 785-seat EU assembly will vote on the proposal in May. EU governments want to decide on the plan in June, in time for the European summer holiday season.
The industry committee voted for the retail price ceiling to take effect after the regulation is approved and apply automatically to all customers, unless they opt for a package with higher roaming fees that would be, for instance, compensated for by a lower tariff for domestic calls.
"Unless they deliberately opt for another tariff, all existing and new roaming customers shall automatically be accorded a Eurotariff," the industry committee said in its proposal.
That goes against the wishes of the industry and many legislators, who argued that automatic price fixing means unnecessary regulation and instead advocated a voluntary cap, with customers being able to opt in for the protected Eurotariff.
Mobile phone companies claim that price ceilings on how much they can charge people who use their phones abroad will be a "regulatory straitjacket" that will disrupt their carefully balanced pricing structure.
But the European Commission says operators make billions of euros (dollars) on charges that are unjustifiably higher than fees charged within a user's home country for using another network.
When the operational cost to back a roaming call is less than 20 euro cents (27 U.S. cents), the EU says that operators charge consumers about euro1.15 ($1.54).
A four-minute call home for a Cypriot in Belgium, for instance, can cost euro12 ($16.10), and for an Irish visitor in Malta as much as euro13.16 ($17.66).
"Loudly, the bell is now tolling for international mobile roaming charges in Europe," said EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding.
