Cheap holiday phone use blocked by EU in another Brexit reset failure

Telegraph

20-05-2025

Cheap phone calls and mobile internet use for British holidaymakers were blocked by the EU during Brexit reset talks, it has emerged.
During negotiations, Sir Keir Starmer had attempted to end roaming charges for UK tourists on the Continent by requesting that they be allowed back into a scheme letting travellers use mobile data at local rates when abroad.
But the move was derailed by southern European states, including Spain and Italy, after they claimed that their networks would be flooded by millions of British holidaymakers over the summer months.
The countries insisted this would result in providers having to increase the prices of domestic contracts to pay for visitors using their services free of charge.
When the EU first decided to scrap roaming charges in 2016, the government estimated it would save UK travellers £1.4 billion a year. Following Britain's exit from the EU, most British providers now charge extra for bundles so that their customers can use mobile internet overseas.
The rejection was a blow to Government negotiators hoping to reduce friction for holidaymakers.
It had been hoped that securing such an agreement, alongside a deal allowing British travellers to use passport e-gates on the Continent, would deliver two tangible benefits to help the Prime Minister sell his wider Brexit reset deal announced on Monday.
But government officials have also now admitted that the much-heralded e-gates deal is unlikely to come into force until the autumn at the earliest.
On Tuesday, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said that 'nothing' was 'going to happen' regarding e-gates until at least October when a new EU border scheme is scheduled to take effect.
Even then, giving Britons access to speedy passport control will be a matter for individual EU nations, not the European Commission that Sir Keir struck his deal with.
One source said airports would probably only open the e-gates to British passport holders when queues were especially busy.
Fishing and farming concerns
The revelations came as the European fishing industry celebrated being handed 12 years of guaranteed access to British waters, as the UK became a rule-taker from Brussels for the first time since Brexit.
While the concessions of fishing rights prompted cries of 'betrayal' and 'surrender' at home, European fishermen praised the deal.
'We couldn't have hoped for better,' Olivier Lepretre, the president of the Hauts-de-France regional fisheries committee, told the France3 television channel.
'We are very satisfied and relieved. This changes a lot of things. If we no longer had access to British waters, we would have suffered a significant loss of revenue. We had a completely blocked horizon, and this agreement gives us visibility.'
Meanwhile, British farmers complained that being forced to accept EU rules could lead to the UK being flooded with products from Europe.
Mo Metcalf-fisher, the director of external affairs at the Countryside Alliance, said: 'There are of course benefits to selling more of our fantastic produce abroad and we should seize those opportunities with gusto.
'But we should avoid a situation where cheaper and lower quality imports flood our markets, undercutting our own farmers and hampering our ability to promote the importance of buying local, seasonal, Great British produce.'
Speaking in the Commons, Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, told Sir Keir that Labour MPs would lose their seats to his party at the next general election because of the Brexit deal.
He said the Prime Minister had 'surrendered the jobs' of many of his MPs, just like he had 'surrendered the fishing industry' in the talks.
Meanwhile, in separate talks, the UK and the EU are poised to launch a global defence bank to rearm the Western armies amid the threat from Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Ministers are considering backing a new institution that would pool resources from states to fund weapons, planes and ships, and make it easier for defence companies to secure private loans.
A 'defence, security and resilience bank', modelled on organisations like the World Bank, could command as much as £100 billion in capital.
The plans come amid government concerns that the cost of basic munitions and equipment has increased dramatically since Russia invaded Ukraine, leaving Western states competing for scarce supplies.