EU roaming charges drop sharply on Saturday

BRUSSELS, Belgium — Mobile phone roaming fees in the EU will fall sharply on Saturday, the last step before they are abolished completely for Europeans next year.

The European Union will scrap phone roaming charges outright on June 15, 2017 ending fees loathed by millions of holidaymakers and business travellers across Europe.

“We’re in the home stretch now before the end of roaming charges in 2017,” Andrus Ansip, the European Commission’s Vice President for the digital single market, said on Friday.

“This is not only about Europeans saving money, this is about bringing down barriers in the digital single market”.

With Saturday’s change, European users travelling on the continent will pay no more than an extra 0.05 euros per minute for calls, 0.02 euros per SMS and 0.05 per megabyte of data.

Currently, the cap is more than triple that at 0.19 euros per minute for calls, 0.06 euros per SMS and 0.20 euros per megabyte of data.

“We welcome the slashing of roaming prices,” said Monique Goyens, head of the European Consumer Organisation.

“Today’s consumers do not understand why crossing a border in Europe has to result in soaring phone and internet costs,” she said.

The end of roaming charges is a key element of the EU’s effort to create a far more unified market in Europe, especially for digital and communication services.

The EU mooted plans last year that would allow travellers to get online streaming services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer when abroad, something currently blocked.

source: interaksyon.com

Germany pledges P13.7 million to provide aid for Cebu, Bohol quake victims

Germany, the strongest European economy, has pledged P13.7 million in humanitarian aid for the benefit of earthquake victims in Cebu and Bohol.

The money will be coursed through Johanniter Unfallhilfe, a German humanitarian organization, which will provide assistance to victims, the German Embassy in Manila said in a statement.

"Germany stands shoulder to shoulder with the Philippines at this difficult time and stands ready to support you in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake," the statement said, citing a letter from German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed to President Benigno Aquino III.

Merkel and German President Joachim Gauck also expressed their heartfelt sympathies to the people of the Philippines and their condolences to those that have lost loved ones.

"Please convey my sympathy to the families of the victims, our hearts go out to them at this time of sorrow. I wish those injured a speedy recovery," wrote Gauck in a separate letter to Aquino.

source: interaksyon.com

Exports, spending pull euro zone out of recession in second quarter

BRUSSELS - A rebound in exports and a return to spending by households and governments pulled the euro zone out of recession in the second quarter of this year, data showed on Wednesday, in the first signs of recovery after the bloc's longest slump.

Stronger-than-expected growth from Germany to Portugal helped the euro zone's economyexpand 0.3 percent in the April-to-June period, the European Union's statistics office Eurostat said in its first breakdown of the data.

Exports to the rest of the world rose sharply in the quarter after six months of falling sales, while government spending made its first positive contribution to the economy since late 2009 whenGreece plunged the euro zone into its debt crisis.

The softening of the austerity policies that many economists blame for worsening the euro zone's longest ever recession was also accompanied by the first quarterly rise in household spending since late 2011.

Cuts in public sector spending from education to health aimed to curtail budgets that ballooned during the boom of the euro's early years, but record unemployment has meant Europeans are buying less and forcing companies to cut output and staff.

The euro zone's fragility was evident in the muted shopping of Europeans during July, when retail trade volumes increased just 0.1 percent, Eurostat said in a separate release.

That was not enough to make up for the 0.7 percent fall in June and was below economists' expectations for a 0.4 percent increase in the month.

Economists now expect economic growth to continue in the third quarter of this year following positive business surveys in August, but there are few hopes of a rapid recovery.

"We do not interpret a second consecutive solid gain as the start of a strong upturn," said Christoph Weil, an economist at Commerzbank. "After all, the imbalances in the periphery have yet to be fully corrected and several core countries are increasingly facing problems," he said in a report.

source: interaksyon.com