Gunnar Hökmark (PPE-DE). – (SV) Over the last 15 years, we in Europe have seen radical developments, with reduced prices for mobile phone calls. There are few areas in which prices have fallen as much as within this particular area. This has been the case, above all, with national calls, but also with international ones – a state of affairs that is worth remembering on a day like today. The problem has been that, as the Commissioner pointed out, we have 27 different markets instead of one. I would therefore congratulate both the Commissioner and the rapporteur, Mr Rübig, on the fact that we are today obtaining a decision that will mean increased transparency and also on the fact that we shall obtain regulation of competition between mobile operators and retailers. This will solve the crucial problem that has led to unduly high roaming fees. In this way, conditions more favourable to competition are being created.

This, I believe, is where we should have stopped, and I therefore regret the fact that we now also have a proposal on the regulation of prices at consumer level. All experience shows that the desired goal is not achieved through price regulation. We are in danger of fixing price development irrevocably around the regulated level. We are in danger of reducing the pressure for increased competition between different operators to lower the prices of both national calls and roaming. We are in danger of not getting to see the kind of rapid price reductions we have seen in the past. Without exaggerating these dangers, I wish to say that it would have been better if we had been satisfied with regulating the area in which we have a problem, namely that of the price differential where retailers and operators are concerned. I say this because the task of the European Union is not, and should not be, to regulate prices at consumer level. The EU should do what the Commissioner indicated earlier today that we should do, namely ensure that we move from having 27 different markets to having just the one. That is where a dynamic is to be found, and that is what we should concentrate on: not on regulating consumer prices but on regulating in such a way that we obtain all-round and constructive competition between operators.