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Gunnar Hökmark on achievements of new roaming legislation – speech in plenary

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Gunnar Hökmark (PPE). – Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work she has done and all her efforts. I think one of the important achievements in this report is the fact that now, from 2014, we will be able to have what is called ‘local breakout’, meaning that we have a real structural reform changing the logic of the telecom markets in regard to Internet surfing and all those things that are more and more important today.

For me it is still a paradox that in this most modern and dynamic market, the telecoms market, we still have 27 different national markets in the European Union where, in reality, we should have just one market able to form the basis for our global leadership.

We can discuss different price caps and we can discuss different ways of regulating how things are today, but the important thing is that, if we are opening the door for one European market in the European Union, with this local breakout it will be possible for all of us to connect to the Internet when we are abroad in the European Union without, so to speak, phoning back home and paying these very expensive costs. We will be able to do this as we do with wi-fi.

So when the Danish Presidency or other presidencies come here to Brussels or Strasbourg they will not have to get connected. We are the home country. They will be able to use the best possible offer in the country where we are and that will be the case not just for the presidencies, it will be the case for all citizens in Europe.

I think this achievement will also mean that we will be able to use all the opportunities that we are opening up today on the Internet for all mobile data traffic and that this will lay the ground for a more competitive Europe, but also a more connected Europe.