This has to be a spoof article. I think mr Straw junior ought to get a proper job as a comedian. perhaps when he has stopped thinking about the "consumers"ofEurope he could give some thought to the workers and young unemployed currently residing in Greece,Ireland,Spain,Italy,Portugal.

Really those telecom ops should be admired for their marketing talent not their technical expertise.
Brainwashing just isn't in it!
The EU Commission is getting a pretty good drubbing but let's not forget those tariff walls that faded away into the ether.
We'd hate to have to storm those defences from outside the EU.

Hacked Off

my neighbor's ex-wife makes $70/hour on the laptop. She has been out of a job for 5 months but last month her paycheck was $21696 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Here's the site to read more Lazycash24 dot com

The first page of Europe On 387m Euros A Day (first page!):

Looking for a popular gesture, the EU reduced the cost of “roaming charges”, the inflated rate that one is charged for using one’s phone elsewhere in the EU. Because telecoms operators exist to make money, they chase the profit bubble wherever it is pushed under the wallpaper. So, most of them recouped the loss by raising the price of domestic phone calls – which we make for the 50 weeks of the year that we are not abroad elsewhere in the EU. (People who are based abroad, such as all MEPs but Belgium’s, may have viewed the decision more gratefully than others.)

The Wall Street Journal saw through the move: “The 56 per cent of European cellphone users who don’t travel outside their home countries, according to a Eurobarometer survey, will surely not be thrilled if their bills rise to accommodate those (typically wealthier) users who do travel. If someone told them their domestic phone bills were likely to go up, this EU brainchild would probably not be as popular as the [EU] Commission appears to think it is now. None of these arguments has so far swayed EU officials, whose chief obsession seems to be boosting the union’s public image.”

In effect, business travellers used to subsidise people making local calls, but now the situation is reversed – some pay-as-you-go minimum call charges went from 10p to 25p. Not quite such a victory for the ordinary consumer.

In 2008, the EU turned its attention to the fee that different networks charge one another for connecting calls, the so-called “termination charges”. The networks, particularly Vodafone, immediately warned the EU that if price caps were imposed on these charges then customer offers such as free handsets would have to be withdrawn and also that, as happens in the USA, those receiving calls might have to be charged.

From: http://tinyurl.com/6llbtpr

Politicians on all sides are being very deliberately disingenuous when they talk about the EU. They have been for decades now. On the one hand, they know that leaving it is not a realistic option therefore will always fall short of calling outright for us to exit the EU. On the otherhand, being eurosceptic and always insulting towards the EU is an excellent vote winner - it makes them look tough by playing on our primitve dislike for all things foreign.

What they all should do is to finally address us as adults. Then maybe there could be some constructive polices towards to EU that we could all support.

What is it about the EU debate that attracts so many idiots into comment sections?

Few are that interested in the internal workings of an institutionally corrupt, bureaucratic, undemocratic and financially failing still born entity that goes by the name of the European Union. It's time to give the British people that vote and let them decide their own future. What is it about the democratic process that Euro-fascists find so terrifying?

Wow, that has sealed it, I'm now converted. Let me know when you hit the bottom, with this new revelation of the never ending joys of the E.U you must be close! Doh

Think about all those poor fish and not the barrel !

Wonderful, Mr Straw, that's a fantastic reason for all the nations of Europe to go down the plughole and financial ruin, your mobile phone calls will be cheaper. Go and peedle such nonsense on your Left Foot Forward!