Mr. Andrus Ansip:

Thank you very much. Some of those questions are quite complicated. Two of them relate to the United Kingdom. The official position of the European Commission is that we will not start to negotiate until the United Kingdom triggers the Article 50 process. For me, it is absolutely clear that we must have good, pragmatic relations between the European Union and the United Kingdom after the latter leaves the Union. We have to find the best solution for the European Union and for the United Kingdom. There will be so many very practical issues, including roaming and how to continue with those roaming surcharges and phone calls in future. It is too early to predict or to start the negotiating process. The UK must trigger the Article 50 process first.

We started to abolish roaming surcharges in the European Union in 2007, but it has been a very complicated process. In the United States, people do not remember roaming surcharges any more, but in the European Union we have a generation of people who know how dangerous it is to use one's mobile devices when travelling in some other EU member states. Even knowing that this business model, based on roaming surcharges, is not sustainable, it is quite difficult for the service provider to change its unsustainable business model. If service providers have to say to their customers, "Don't use my services when travelling in some other EU member states", that is not a sustainable business model. If people do not care about this and continue to use those services while travelling in some other countries, they can easily start to hate those service providers because of the bills they have to pay. Let us remember where we started from a little more than a year ago. During the Latvian Presidency, we had a "5 + 5 + 5" proposal. On five days per year, one would get five minutes of phone calls on a "roam like at home" basis. Not per day, not free of charge, but "roam like at home". Then five SMS messages per day during the five days on a "roam like at home" basis and then 5 megabytes. If a person opened their iPad and there were some kind of automatic download or they went on Facebook and there were videos playing, they could lose up to €100. European citizens had to be happy about the "5 + 5 + 5". We had really tough negotiations and then the decision was made. Since May this year, those roaming surcharges have dropped once again by 75%. I would like to say people were quite happy about this decision during the holidays. The decision was made that from 15 June next year those roaming surcharges will be totally abolished, but we promised to agree on wholesale reform.

We also promised to implement the fair use principles. Why are those fair use principles needed? There is a situation where people from some countries visit southern European countries more often than people from southern European countries visit Scandinavia, for example. In those countries, the people are not ready to pay much more for domestic calls or data just because of roaming. We have to set some kind of safeguards to avoid free-riding. The Commission has not made a decision in this area yet. Those articles were about a proposal about consultations, which will last for three months and this is about safeguards. It was also written that, as a minimum, 90 days of surcharge-free roaming phone calls will be covered. I am sure the big companies that have started this practice already will continue. They will say that during the entire year there will be no more roaming surcharges. Even for those, safeguards will be needed.

It can happen theoretically that people from countries where prices are at a very low level will subscribe to and consume these services in countries where labour costs are at a much higher level. Some kind of safeguards will be needed. I do not want to protect this concrete figure of 90 days. I do not think there is a big difference between 90 days and 180 days. A 90-day figure will cover 99.9% of all these cases. We can discuss those issues. There has to be compromise. I remind the committee that service providers and member states were not ready to move on from the 5+5+5 proposal. Strong support is coming from the European Parliament, but it is not enough. We need to have consensus among member states. Then the European Commission and the European Parliament will have to share the same understanding. I think Europeans deserve the total abolition of roaming surcharges. I am sure it will happen in practice on 15 June 2017.

On the geoblocking of programmes, we will make our second copyright reform proposal during the next couple of weeks. I am not ready to say exactly when this will happen. We would also like to propose some changes in the cable and satellite directive. We would like to extend the country of origin principle to IPTV. This would mean that broadcasters with clear rights in one country will be able to send their content through satellite or IPTV to Ireland so that people here can enjoy it. This is our aim. The proposal is not ready yet. We are in the process. According to the broadcasters, 65% more content will be available across borders if we implement the changes in this plan. I do not think that is enough. We can do more. I think we can double the volume of content that is available for our people across borders. According to our proposal, we will protect creators and will provide better and fairer remuneration to them.

I would like to speak about Ireland and digital development. I was the mayor of the second-largest town in Estonia for six years. I spent nine years as Prime Minister of Estonia. Ireland was always a really good example for me and for all Estonians. When we made our reforms in Estonia, we copied the Irish example. Ireland's very liberal model of the economy was a dream of every Estonian. Estonia is now doing relatively well in digital media, for example. According to this index, we are ranked seventh.