Originally Posted by Dr Richard North
The EU can claim very little which is to the direct advantage of ordinary people. So, when it thinks there is something it can use to its advantage, it grabs it with both hands and pushes it for all it's worth.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find the Government in its propaganda leaflet bigging up the decision to abolish mobile phone roaming charges across the EU, thereby saving UK customers up to 38p per minute on calls.
Claiming credit for such things, though, is what the EU does – even when it is not the prime mover. As Pete pointed out a little while back, reducing roaming charges is a global initiative in which one of the major players is not the EU but the OECD.
However, if there is any single group that can take the credit for forcing changes, it is an obscure organisation that calls itself the International Telephone Users Group (INTUG). Founded in 1974, a year after the UK joined the then EEC, it is an international association of business users of telecommunications with members and contacts in all five continents and thus claims a global presence.
In 2010, the OECD published its policy recommendations, which put the move to reduce roaming charges on a truly international footing, also pulling in the WTO as part of a globally co-ordinated initiative.
In 2013, effectively it was all over, with the OECD invoking WTO (of which the UK does not have a seat due to EU membership) provisions, stating that "international mobile roaming services are believed to fall under the scope of these provisions" and "more clearly so under section 5 a) of the Annex on Telecommunications".
EU or not, the writing was on the wall. We saw in 2013, India committing to removing roaming charges. African countries followed, alongside Latin America. ASEAN members are set to do likewise. In the United States and the Caribbean, things are also moving in the right direction.
As for the EU, it has been slow to the point of hesitant, its actions marked down as unambitious. Its claim to be looking after consumer interests is hollow, representing nothing more than them taking credit for an unstoppable movement that was going to happen anyway.
