Travellers across Europe will benefit from reduced mobile rates this summer after the European Parliament approved a proposal to cap roaming charges.

The European Commission (EC) put forward its proposals last July, in response to what it viewed as unacceptably high charges for using a mobile phone while abroad. The vote this week was on a compromise proposal, agreed among the EC, the Council Presidency and other bodies ¬– all of which had been calling for different price caps.

The agreed price caps will come into force this summer, with further reductions set for 2008 and 2009. From this summer, European travellers visiting other member states can be charged a maximum of €0.49 plus VAT per minute to make a call, and a maximum of €0.24 to receive calls. These charges will fall to €0.43 and €0.19 respectively by summer 2009.

The compromise agreement also sets the maximum operator-to-operator wholesale tariff at €0.30 per minute, falling to €0.26 by 2009.

As the European Parliament, the Council and the EC have now all agreed the tariffs, the Council of Telecoms Ministers’ vote scheduled for 7 June is seen as a formality. Once that has gone through, the roaming regulation could become law across the 27 member states as early as mid-June.

EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding, the champion of the roaming charges proposal, welcomed this week’s vote.

“Today is a good day for consumers and business travellers in the EU. In a record time of only 10 months, a political agreement could be reached on the EU Roaming Regulation,” Reding said. “This means that already from this summer, mobile phone customers will start benefiting from substantially reduced roaming charges when travelling from one EU country to another. Europe's internal market will finally become truly borderless, even for mobile phone bills."