5 January 2026

Von der Leyen’s push to extend EU roaming faces resistance

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing to expand the EU’s roaming area as part of the bloc’s enlargement agenda, but the plan is encountering growing scepticism from telecom operators and from candidate countries themselves, including Ukraine and Moldova.

The “Roam Like at Home” system allows consumers travelling within the EU and the European Economic Area to use their mobile phones for calls, texts and data at no extra cost. In October, von der Leyen announced that Albania and Montenegro would join the scheme in 2026 – a move that surprised many stakeholders, given that it took more than three years for Ukraine and Moldova, which joined on 1 January 2026, to be admitted.

Extending the roaming area to non-EU countries should not be rushed or decoupled from the accession process, Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Digital Transformation Stanislav Prybytko and Moldovan Economy and Digitalisation Minister Michelle Iliev told Euractiv.

On the industry side, László Tóth, head of public policy at mobile operators’ lobby GSMA, warned that allowing countries to join the roaming area ahead of EU accession risks diverting resources away from network investment.

Underlying competition issues

While EU consumers benefit from surcharge-free roaming, operators continue to pay wholesale fees to one another when subscribers roam abroad. These fees are capped – at €1.10 per gigabyte of data, €0.019 per minute for calls and €0.003 per text — but critics argue the ceilings remain too high.

Operators in tourist-heavy countries such as Croatia, Greece, Italy and Spain tend to gain from incoming traffic, while Nordic and Baltic operators argue that the system drains resources.

In April 2025, EU telecoms regulators grouped in BEREC concluded that wholesale caps exceeded market prices and recommended lowering them. Virtual operators represented by MVNO Europe backed steeper cuts, proposing a reduction to €0.25 per gigabyte and €0.0025 per minute.

The Commission, however, decided in June 2025 that the existing caps support “competitive market dynamics” and opted against revising them.

Consumer groups are meanwhile pushing to abolish intra-EU call and text charges, which still apply when users contact someone in another country. An Estonian calling a Croatian number from Tallinn, for instance, can be charged up to €0.19 per minute and €0.06 per text.

Brussels took a first step towards scrapping these surcharges in December 2025, with full abolition possible from 1 January 2029. Despite the remaining distortions, the EU roaming area has been “a clear success for consumers,” said Cláudio Teixeira of BEUC, which supports extending the system to non-EU countries.

Expansion issues

Beyond pricing disputes, the planned enlargement of the roaming area is raising fresh operational and political concerns. Albania and Montenegro are expected to join in 2026, but countries that entered earlier warn that further expansion should not come at the expense of market stability.

Moldova and Ukraine, which joined after what Iliev described as a “rigorous technical process,” argue that any new entrants should be subject to the same scrutiny. Prybytko cautioned that ad-hoc additions risk creating imbalances.

The Commission has postponed the presentation of its roaming expansion strategy until spring 2026, after initially planning to table it last November, underscoring unresolved concerns among EU capitals and regulators.

Cost distribution is another sticking point. As EU tourists are likely to generate heavy roaming traffic in Albania and Montenegro during the summer, operators elsewhere could face higher wholesale costs than they recoup.

Under the current model, non-EU countries join the roaming area through bilateral arrangements: Albanians would benefit from surcharge-free roaming across the EU, but not when travelling to other non-EU participants such as Ukraine or Moldova.

Each additional entrant also requires significant operational and IT adjustments for operators.

“Ad-hoc arrangements can create asymmetries and increase administrative and financial burdens,” Iliev warned, urging a more cautious and coordinated approach to further expansion.