Spain and Portugal Aim to Eliminate Mobile Phone Roaming Charges

Spain and Portugal are hoping to set a benchmark for telecommunications in the European Union by agreeing to eliminate cellphone roaming charges as part of efforts to promote their bilateral trade.

Preliminary talks have been held and the issue is set to be on the agenda of a summit meeting next month in Portugal between José Sócrates, the Portuguese prime minister, and his Spanish counterpart, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Prime Minister Sócrates said that such an agreement would bring "a considerable benefit" to bilateral trade and to millions of businessmen and tourists who travel across the Iberian peninsula each year. An agreement would also likely be welcomed by the European Commission, which has long been on a mission to require telecom operators to reduce differences in national roaming charges as well as between EU members to close to zero by 2015 to create a genuine single market for communications among the bloc's 27 member states. The European Union's current roaming rules expire in July 2012, and the commission is to develop new proposals next spring for the period after 2012.