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Looking a gift horse in the mouth
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Godfrey Bloom MEP, UK Independence Party spokesman on the Internal Market has slated the Commission's plans to impose mobile roaming charges. "Though the headlines look good, the small print is what matters", he said.
"The end result of this interference with an effective market mechanism will just mean higher mobile phone charges for everyone", continued Bloom.
The Commission's proposal for a regulation to slash, or even outlaw roaming charges cannot be taken at face value. Mr Bloom pointed out that, "A tiny minority of mobile phone calls are made from abroad; meanwhile the cost of this action will have repercussions to the price of domestic phone use".
In the last year the average cost of roaming charges has dropped by 8%, and in the case of Vodafone alone, with 100 million customers in the European Union the costs have dropped by a staggering 30%. As the competition increases so do the benefits for the consumer, with new technology and new charge deals hitting the market on a weekly basis. "Regulations should only be used in extremis when there is a proven market failure. In the case of mobile phones there is no such thing, quite the opposite", he said. This attempt to regulate retail process is a throwback to the discredited 1970's price policy and should be opposed.
"Of course this will be supported amongst the political elite in the European Institutions, and we have already heard a chorus from Euro MPs from the other parties", he commented, "Well they would wouldn't they. I myself will see a massive drop in my costs if this goes through, but should we be legislating on something that has such a personal benefit to politicians whilst penalising the vast majority?"
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