Glenis Willmott has welcomed the end of rip-off charges for using a mobile phone across the European Union. 

As a result of a new EU law, supported by Labour MEPs, which comes into force today, mobile phone users will be better off.  This is a clear example of how Britain benefits from our membership of the EU, says Mrs Willmott.

The changes, which take effect from 1st July, mean that sending a text from another EU country will cost a maximum of 11p, while calling costs, already cut by an EU law introduced in 2007, will fall further to a maximum charge of 43p to make a call and 19p to receive.

Glenis said. "Labour Euro MPs have campaigned hard to end unfair charges for consumers using their mobile abroad.”

“We warned mobile phone companies to do something about cutting their prices.   As they didn’t, we had no choice but to bring in this new law to end the rip off.

“Prices for sending a text from another EU country will be cut by more than half from today, and calls will get cheaper too.  It will obviously help those people going on holiday, but will also cut costs for business people who travel to other EU countries."

Glenis added.  "People using their mobile phones will also get more information on what they will be charged.  For example, those who want to access the internet or send email while abroad can set a limit on how much they are willing to spend.”

“It is examples like this, where European action is clearly saving people money, which show how we in Britain can get the best out of our membership of the EU.”

Further information

From July 1 2009 the revised EU law on mobile phone 'roaming' charges comes into force, cutting the costs of using your mobile in another EU country.

The revised law includes a cap on charges for texts when roaming in another EU state at 11 cents (11p with VAT), adopts new transparency requirements and extends the legislation cutting voice roaming charges, which had been set to end in 2010. The regulation on voice calls will remain in place until 2012 and includes further reductions to calling charge caps, with 35 cents for outgoing calls and 11 cents for incoming calls from 2011.

Data usage transparency: under the system proposed by Euro MPs customers will be able to specify data usage limits in advance. A notification will then be sent when 80% of the limit is reached. When the limit is reached the consumer will be prompted to follow a certain procedure in case he/she wishes to continue the download. If the customer doesn't react as prompted the download will be ceased and charging stopped.

2 July 2009