The cost to mobile phone users of calling home from abroad looks set to fall dramatically with the introduction of tough rules aimed at ending "rip-off" charges which the EU Commissioner today decalred were "unacceptable".

The European Commission said today that it aims to introduce laws which will end the high cost to travellers of calling home by eliminating all charges for receiving a call. Consumers should begin to benefit from mid-2007.

At present a British customer with O2, travelling in France, is charged up to 99p a minute just to receive a call. Many operators also use a system where a customer is billed by their own service supplier, and also with a "roaming" charge from the local operator in the country in which the customer is travelling.

Under the Commission's plans, mobile users travelling within the EU will in future only be charged a normal local or international rate when they call from their mobile.

The proposed measures, which the Commission hopes could be adopted as early as June, will be embraced by consumer groups which have long lobbied over the high cost of calling home on a mobile phone.

Calls made from abroad can be up to 40 times more expensive than a standard UK national call.

But the mobile companies, such as Vodafone, Orange and O2, are likely to vigorously oppose the plans.

They claim that there is no evidence that the market is failing and say that they have already implemented measures which have brought down roaming costs.

Roaming is big business for operators, accounting for up to 20 per cent of their total revenues.

Shares in Vodafone were down 1.75p by lunchtime today, to 122.75p, on fears of the impact of the proposed rules. O2 were unchanged by lunchtime.

The European Commission warned mobile operators last year that it would introduce EU-wide rules if they did not slash their prices.

But, it said today, operators had failed to react as requested, with one instead pushing up the price of calls from abroad.

Special packages introduced by the operators aimed at providing better prices had not enjoyed wide take-up, it said, because customers had to opt-in to them and because they sometimes have a monthly charge attached to them.

Viviane Reding, the EC’s information society and media commissioner, said: "It is high time that the EU’s internal market delivered substantially lower communication charges for consumers and business people travelling abroad.

"Today it is only when using your mobile phone abroad that you realise that there are still borders in Europe," she said.

"Unfortunately, you only see that several weeks after having come back from a trip when you receive a very high bill for having communicated on your mobile outside your home country.

"For me it is unacceptable that consumers are punished on their phone bill simply for crossing a border inside the European Union,"

European regulators, including Ofcom, the UK telecoms watchdog, are backing Ms Reding’s plans.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive