EU: The EU heads of government have welcomed a suggestion from the Taoiseach that action should be taken across the Union to eliminate or reduce roaming charges for mobile phone customers.
The Taoiseach told a press conference after the European Council meeting that he had suggested to colleagues that co-ordinated action should be agreed to abolish roaming charges.
He said the Austrian presidency of the EU had welcomed his proposal but after discussion the consensus had been that it was more practical to press for reduced roaming charges first before seeking their elimination.
Mr Ahern said he had told his colleagues how the issue had developed in Ireland because of the roaming charges along the Border and the way the Irish and British governments had successfully applied pressure on the big phone companies to abolish the charges.
"It shows that can be done if the political will is there," said the Taoiseach.
In its final conclusions the European Council referred to the issue in the context of the strategy of achieving economic growth and productivity. "In this context, it notes the importance for competitiveness of reducing roaming charges," said the conclusions, which called on the commission and the member states to implement the strategy vigorously.
At his press conference the Taoiseach also spoke about the need for the EU to press ahead as quickly as possible with the adoption of a common policy on energy. He said the issue would now be assessed on an annual basis at the spring council meeting.
"The Government will publish a Green Paper on energy later in the year," said Mr Ahern. He said there were particular problems in getting real competition into the energy market in small countries such as Ireland that did not have a land link to the rest of Europe. He said there was an agreement in principle to build an electricity interconnector with Britain.
The Irish and British governments argued for a watering down of the presidency's proposal to set specific targets for the switch to renewable energy sources by 2015. The target of 15 per cent of energy from renewables was changed to "considering a target of 15 per cent" in the final conclusions. At present only 2 per cent of energy in Ireland comes from renewable sources.
