MEPs today backed a plan to slash the cost of using mobile phones abroad.
The European Commission says the move will cut prices to a quarter or a fifth of what citizens now pay for making and receiving calls in other member states.
Under the plan, in the first year the EU-wide maximum roaming tariff will be 49 cents a minute for making calls abroad and 24 cents for receiving them. It will fall to 46 and 22 cents in the second year and 43 and 19 cents in the third, respectively.
"It's a great day for consumers, whether they are tourists or business travellers ... their telephone bills will melt away," EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding told EU lawmakers debating mandatory caps on roaming charges.
"The regulation will protect the vast majority of ordinary customers who up to now have been heavily overcharged when travelling abroad," she said.
The MEPs approved the measure on a show of hands by an overwhelming majority.
Joachim Wuermeling, speaking for the German presidency of the EU, told MEPs he hoped member states would give the final green light on June 29th. That would give operators until the end of July to offer price caps and until the end of August to enforce them.
Ms Reding warned that the EU could also regulate the price of mobile phone data - such as text and audiovisual messages (SMS and MMS) - if prices did not fall, stressing that national regulators would watch prices closely in the next 18 months.
"The operators should know this, see this warning signal very carefully and bring the prices down to normal by themselves in order to avoid further regulation," she said.
The caps would then lapse unless reaffirmed by EU states and the bloc's assembly.
The price cap will only become automatic for all customers two months after the offer is made.
Users already benefiting from specific roaming tariffs or packages will not be switched automatically.