The European Union's Roaming Regulation has lowered the prices for mobile roaming within the EU, effective July 1, 2013.
The new price caps are as follows: 24 cents per minute for making a call, 7 cents per minute for receiving a call, 8 cents for sending a text message, and 45 cents per MB of data traffic download -- a 36% price reduction. The prices do not include VAT, which will be added individually on a per-country basis.
The prices have been reduced even more in Croatia, which became a member of the European Union today. For Croats, the cost for data transfer in the EU decreased almost 15 times, while sending an SMS or making a call from an EU country is 10 times cheaper than before.
The EU roaming tariffs will be reduced even further in summer 2014. The price cap for making a call will drop to 19 cents, receiving a call will cost 5 cents at most, an SMS will cost 6 cents, and mobile internet will drop to 20 cents per MB.
Of course, all of these are the maximum permissible prices -- operators are free to offer cheaper rates.