SOFIA (Bulgaria), June 30 (SeeNews) – The European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement to end roaming charges in the EU and to guarantee an open Internet, the Commission said on Tuesday.
The agreement foresees the end of roaming charges as of June 15, 2017 and strong net neutrality rules protecting the right of every European to access Internet content, the Commission said in a statement posted on its website.
"Consumers will pay the same price for calls, texts and mobile data wherever they are travelling in the EU," the Commission said, adding that already from April 2016 operators will only be able to charge a small additional amount to domestic prices up to 0.05 euro ($0.06) per minute of call made, 0.02 euro per SMS sent, and 0.05 euro per MB of data.
These measures will be completed by an overhaul of EU telecoms rules in 2016, the Commission said, adding that creating the right conditions for digital networks and services to flourish is a key objective of the its plan for a digital single market.
In Southeast Europe, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia are members of the EU.
($=0.8967 euro)