Unlimited surfing: Planned EU roaming expansion causes bad blood

Free roaming is considered one of the most tangible symbols of European regulatory policy: since 2017, anyone traveling within the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) uses their mobile phone under the same conditions as at home. "Roam Like at Home" has removed the fear of the mobile phone bill after vacation. Now, this successful model is also intended to bear more diplomatic fruit: according to Euractiv, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) wants to rapidly expand the roaming zone to bind the Western Balkan states more closely to the community.

Ukraine and Moldova officially became part of the largely fee-free roaming system on January 1st, after years of negotiations and preparations. The new accession candidates Albania and Montenegro are to follow as early as 2026, according to von der Leyen's wishes, without much preamble.

This ambitious timeline is now causing unrest in the digital single market, writes Euractiv. Criticism is also coming from unexpected quarters. Stanislav Prybytko, Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation, and Moldovan Minister Michelle Iliev are therefore urging caution. They are against decoupling the expansion of the roaming zone from the actual accession process or even rushing it.

Joining the roaming system is not a purely administrative act, but requires profound technical and regulatory adjustments, the government representatives explain their concerns. The pioneers of the latest expansion round find it risky for the stability of the entire market for countries to follow in a hurry. They fear that ad-hoc agreements could lead to asymmetries and unnecessarily increase the administrative and financial burden for all parties involved.

Distribution battle behind the scenes

The mobile industry is also sounding the alarm. The industry association GSMA warns that too rapid an expansion would tie up valuable resources that are actually needed for the urgently required network expansion. Behind the shiny facade of fee-free access for end customers, a distribution battle over so-called interoperator fees has been raging for a long time. When a tourist surfs in Albania, their home provider has to pay a wholesale fee to the Albanian network operator. Although this is capped, according to observers, it is still significantly above actual market costs. While tourist hotspots in the south profit from these fees, operators in Nordic and Baltic states complain about a constant capital outflow.

The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) recommended a significant reduction in these price caps in March 2025 to stimulate competition. Virtual network operators even called for a reduction to a fraction of the current rates.

However, the Commission decided against an adjustment in June and defended the existing caps as market-compliant. This fuels the concern that an expansion of the roaming zone to countries with high tourist numbers could exacerbate financial imbalances within the EU. A German provider could thus be financially burdened by summer vacationers in Montenegro to such an extent that compensation through its own revenues would no longer be possible.

Clean technical solution required

An old political burden further complicates the situation: when making calls from home to abroad within the EU, surcharges are often still incurred. Only recently did the Commission take the first steps to eliminate this cost trap by 2029.

Consumer advocates support the expansion of the roaming zone but demand a clean technical implementation. The EU's current strategy is often based on bilateral agreements. This leads to strange constellations: an Albanian could call in Berlin without extra charge in the future. However, when traveling to Moldova or Ukraine, he would still have to expect high fees, as there are no direct agreements between these partner countries.

Given the unresolved issues, the Commission has postponed the presentation of its new roaming strategy to spring, according to the report. The paper was originally scheduled to be published in November. In 2019, after an evaluation, the Brussels executive drew a positive conclusion from "Roam Like at Home". The use of mobile data services while traveling in the EU had increased tenfold on average within two years. The auditors found no indications that the abolition of wholesale fees could have worsened the quality of mobile telephony and, above all, data speeds.

(vbr)