Don't get caught in roaming trap, Brussels warns

In contrast, a Finnish traveller calling home from Cyprus would fork out just €0.58 a minute for the pleasure.

"Retail charges for consumers in the EU are very high with no clear justification", a commission spokesman said, adding that roaming has become an "annoyance" instead of the "attractive service" it could be.

"I am sure that greater progress from the sector is not just necessary but also possible", information society commissioner Viviane Reding added.

The commission plans to publish the roaming costs of individual mobile phone firms online in September in the belief that added transparency will stimulate consumers to flock to more competitive suppliers.

"It might be that the problem can be solved by the marketplace", the spokesman noted, adding "we hope to avoid regulation on this".

Further legal action may be needed

But Brussels warned that initial conclusions from an eight-month long study covering over 5,000 intra-service provider agreements indicate that it might need to refer individual cases to its anti-trust branch.

The competition department is already pursuing legal action against three European firms, Vodafone, mmO2 (now called 02) and T-Mobile, for potential abuse of their dominant position in setting roaming costs between the UK and Germany.

The move stems from another major probe into the sector dating back to 2000.

"The fact that we pursued claims against these companies only does not imply we had no problems with any other firms, but we felt these should be focused on", another commission mouthpiece noted.

UK provider hits back

O2 welcomed the commission's internet plan "in principle" so long as the new website itself is "transparent and useful", the firm's head of communications David Nicholas told EUobserver.

He pointed out that roaming costs have alredy been falling for the past three or four years on their own though, stating "the European mobiles market is a pretty competitive place".

The 02 spokesman explained that his company keeps its customers well-informed on special roaming offers for holidaymakers or frequent travellers.

But he explained that some suppliers are held back from offering lower prices by their competitors' "call-termination rates", which set the basic costs of providing international roaming services.