Despite the European Commission’s publication of its “name and shame” roaming benchmarking website on 2 August, four of the 27 EU member States, including Malta, still do not have at least one mobile operator offering roaming tariffs below the regulation’s ceilings.

The other three countries are Italy, Greece and Portugal.

The new EU Roaming Regulation (in force since 30 June) requires mobile operators to make available, and actively offer, a Eurotariff to their customers by 30 July. It states that roaming charges should not exceed EUR0.49 for making and EUR0.24 for receiving calls abroad (excluding VAT). Operators are encouraged to compete with cheaper prices below the ceilings, as has happened in 23 member States so far, but not in Malta.

Once a customer accepts the offered Eurotariff, the operator has one month maximum to activate this tariff.

Consumers who do not react will be automatically switched to the Eurotariff on 30 September unless they had previously subscribed to a special roaming package.

In Germany, T-Mobile activated its tariffs on 1 July and Vodafone on 29 July. In France, SFR activated its tariffs last Wednesday and Orange will activate its tariffs next Thursday.

In October, the Commission, together with the European Regulators Group, will make a more detailed and qualitative assessment of the transition to the Eurotariff. The results will be important in view of the evaluation that the Commission must present to the European Parliament and to the EU Council of Ministers by 30 December 2008.