By Dave Jones and Dave Jamieson
EXPENSIVE roaming charges holidaymakers pay to use their mobile phones in another European country have been slashed following intervention from the European Commission (EC).
Travellers making calls, downloading data or texting will make large savings due to changes which came into force at the weekend.
The EC has been battling with mobile providers to force through cuts to the cost of making cross-border calls and using data in another country.
Roaming charges in the EU will be abolished completely from June 2017 from when call allowances will apply across the EU as if the user were in their home country.
In the interim, the EU has put a cap on the amount operators can charge.
A roaming surcharge can now be no more than €0.05 extra per minute for calls, €0.02 for a text message and €0.05 extra per MB of data, excluding VAT.
