BORDER residents hit with outrageous extra mobile phone charges may have to still pay them, an Irish MEP has warned.
The ending of roaming charges for mobile phone users which has been supported by the European Parliament and the last European Commission is being watered down by proposals to be discussed by the EU Council of Ministers this week, MEP Marian Harkin has said.
Under the proposal there would be a delay to scrapping mobile phone charges until 2018 at the earliest with some transitional measures in place until then.
Describing this development as a challenge to the European Parliament’s enhanced powers of co-decision Independent MEP Marian Harkin said that it represented an attempt to prioritise the needs of telecom companies rather than the EU’s mobile phone users.
“We promised EU citizens that we would eliminate roaming charges by 2015 – we need to keep that promise” Marian Harkin stated.
“What is coming forward from the Council of Ministers is a challenge to the European Parliament but what is coming from European Commission President Juncker is also totally unacceptable in that he stated on his appointment that it was a priority for him that mobile phone users would not have to pay roaming charges”, she said.
Nothing less than the elimination of roaming charges by the end of 2015 was acceptable to the European Parliament and this would be represented very strongly to President Juncker and the Council of Ministers by her Parliamentary Group, ALDE, Independent MEP Marian Harkin concluded.
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