The Ministry of Digital Transformation informs the public that the amendments and supplements to the Law on Electronic Communications (ZEK) have entered into a government procedure and have been published on ENER. With these amendments, North Macedonia fulfils its legal obligations to align with European standards in the field of roaming, with a clear goal – greater protection, increased transparency and lower and predictable costs for citizens while using mobile services roaming in the member states of the European Union.
The Republic of North Macedonia is already part of the regional roaming agreement in the Western Balkans, with which citizens use mobile services in the countries of the region under conditions like at home, without additional roaming costs.
The amendments and supplements to the Law on Electronic Communications create conditions for establishing clear rules to limit the prices of roaming services, enhanced consumer protection through transparent information and mechanisms for preventing unexpectedly high costs and strengthening the regulatory role of the competent institutions in the field of electronic communications, abolishing roaming costs when traveling in EU countries, increasing legal certainty and predictability of prices and facilitating access to digital services, e-services and mobile communications abroad.
The proposed amendments align with:
• Directive (EU) 2018/1972 on the establishment of the European Electronic Communications Code;
• Regulation (EU) 2022/612 on roaming in public mobile communications networks within the Union;
• Regulation (EU) 2016/2286 on fair use and methodology for assessing the sustainability of the abolition of additional roaming charges;
• Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/654 on a single maximum price for terminating voice calls on mobile and fixed networks;
• Regulation (EU) 2018/1971 on the establishment of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and the BEREC Office.
The Ministry of Digital Transformation expects the Government to establish the text of the law by the end of the month, and in February it will be submitted to the parliamentary procedure and adopted.
With this step, the Ministry of Digital Transformation and the Government are fulfilling the conditions for achieving the same costs for calls, messages and internet packages for North Macedonia n citizens when they travel or stay in the EU. This will be followed by the adoption of three by-laws by the Agency for Electronic Communications, after which all these activities will be shared with the European Commission for their validation.
In this way, North Macedonia n citizens will enjoy the benefits of the single European roaming zone, without additional unforeseen charges and costs, in the same way as EU citizens.
The text of the draft law has been published on the ENER platform where all interested parties will be able to submit comments and suggestions, the documents are available at the following link:
https://ener.gov.mk/Default.aspx?item=pub_regulation&subitem=view_reg_detail&itemid=116080