Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-09-Speech-3-064-000"
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"en.20120509.17.3-064-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Ms Niebler, and Mr Goebbels in particular, thank you for this excellent result. We have reached an agreement quickly and this was essential because the current legislation will cease to apply in a few weeks’ time. However, the maximum rates in the agreement are considerably lower than those originally proposed by the Commission.
The result is good for consumers, because they will notice the difference as early as this summer when they travel abroad. Phone calls and text messages will be cheaper. The real task, however, is doing something about data services. That will be a major intervention. Currently, the rates are however much you are prepared to pay, anything from EUR 3 per megabyte, but soon they will be a lot less, namely, EUR 0.70 per megabyte.
Today is Europe Day and we are celebrating Europe’s past success stories. Certainly, intervention in the mobile phone market has been one of the success stories of Europe, but it is a success story of the past. My question is: will what we have done now be a success story of the future? I ask this because what we have decided now is a suboptimal solution. It is a solution which creates additional fuss for the consumer.
What lies at the core of the issue is separating national and international markets and this is all to do with dual IMSI, the dual SIM card and local break-out. Why do things in such a roundabout way? We could have made it a lot easier for everyone. Now, consumers will have to spend hours behind the computer in the evening trying to work out what contracts they need to choose. If the internal digital market is our objective, then why take this roundabout route?
There is, however, an optimal solution that we could have achieved much more quickly, and that is: ‘roam like you are at home’. My question is whether it will come into being in 2016, without further intervention? The proposal, therefore, was that it should come into effect earlier. A genuine internal market is Europe’s success story, as someone here has already said. So, we do not want any differences between national and European rates; the proposal by the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament was to phase out maximum rates and to then introduce a single rate in Europe from 1 July 2014. The advantages will be cheaper deals for consumers and a genuine internal communications market. ‘Stop roaming now’ was the motto.
I have a few more questions: namely, network neutrality has been included in the roaming agreement. The European Parliament has also adopted a resolution on the subject and the Dutch Parliament has passed a law to ensure network neutrality by preventing providers from being able to suddenly prioritise certain websites. Commissioner, you have said that you would put forward a proposal for network neutrality after the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) has completed a study (which took place on 6 March).
The success story must have a follow-up on the digital market."@en1
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