In the grand
scale of things, whether we will have to pay roaming charges for using mobile
phones in the EU after Brexit is a fairly minor issue. Sometimes, though, it is the apparently minor
issues which can highlight the scale of a problem.
The EU
legislation which abolished roaming charges is based on capping the amount
which mobile operator A in one state can charge to the customers of mobile
operator B from another state, but it does not apply to states which are not
party to the agreement, so that operator A is free to charge a great deal more,
if it wishes, to customers from third party states. If the UK fails to strike a deal which keeps
the UK in the Digital
Single Market, (and the UK Government has made it clear to date that it
wants to leave the single market) then it becomes a third party state for the
purposes of that agreement, leaving the EU operators free to reintroduce higher
charges for UK operators whose customers travel within the EU.
Will they do
so? At first sight, there’s no necessary
reason why they would choose to do so - if the choice is entirely up to them. Life isn’t as simple as that, however. There is potentially a problem for EU-based
mobile operators if they want to treat one third party in a different way to
other third parties; it could be seen as an unfair trading practice leaving them
open to legal action. In the absence of even a more limited agreement on the specific issue, that fear may lead
them to seek to charge UK operators on the same basis as other non-EEA members,
which would mean an increase in costs for UK mobile operators when their
customers travel to the EU. Conversely,
of course, the UK operators could charge EU operators in respect of their
customers travelling to the UK; any net increase in cost therefore depends on
the net difference in travel between the UK and the EU. That difference is likely to work in favour of
the EU operators.
UK mobile
operators can choose not to add roaming charges to our bills, of course (the big
operators have already said
that they won’t); and the UK Government can in any case act, as it has promised
to do, to legislate to prevent them doing so or limit the extent to which they
can do so. But UK legislation can only
control how any charges levied by EU operators are passed on to end users, not
whether they are levied at all. If UK
operators face increased charges, they will undoubtedly pass them on to users
one way or another; if not through roaming charges, then through a more general
increase in bills. Any government ‘promise’
that roaming charges will not be introduced is only part of the story; they are
simply unable to make any promise that the costs of using mobile phones will
not increase, one way or another, as a result of Brexit.
As I said at the
outset, this is apparently a very minor issue, but the complexity serves to
underline how little real work has been done on the detailed implications of
the decision to opt out of the single market, and government attempts to
pooh-pooh any suggestions that there will be problems demonstrate an alarming
level of either complacency or a refusal to face facts. It is the UK which has decided to leave the
single market; continuing to demand that the EU treats us as though we are a
member whilst not being bound by any of the obligations is leading us into a
wholly unnecessary state of chaos. And
this one small issue is multiplied many times over in a whole range of other fields.
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