Johan Larsson/Flickr Mobile roaming charges ban in 2017 EU leaders broker a telecoms deal after a marathon session that lasted until 2 a.m. Tuesday.

After months of delay, European negotiators finally agreed early Tuesday morning to a provisional deal on reforms that will secure open Internet access and eliminate mobile phone roaming charges throughout the EU starting in June 2017.

The deal on the telecoms single market reforms, also known as Connected Continent, was brokered by the Latvians, who hammered out a compromise between Council members, European Commission and Parliament in the final days of their presidency of the Council.

“This is a great success for the European Union and the Latvian presidency,” said Anrijs Matīss, the Latvian minister for transport.

Before the sides met at 2 p.m. Monday for the fourth and final negotiating session under the Latvians, several people involved in the talks said they were cautiously optimistic an agreement was in sight. That optimism was worn down after four hours of back-and-forth. The parties were then forced to break until 10 p.m. because of a conflict with another meeting. The provisional deal was finally done at around 2 a.m.

Vicky Ford, British MEP from the European Conservatives and Reformists group, took to Twitter to express her frustration at midnight: “Still in negotiations on Roaming and Net Neutrality. Taking cat herding to new extremes...”

Mobile roaming ban: coming to a country near you

Going in, Parliament and Council were relatively close to a deal on the roaming ban. The only major dispute remained whether the ban would be implemented in 2016, as Parliament had initially demanded, or delayed, as the member countries wanted.

They met in the middle. Roaming will be banned in 2017, and from April 30, 2016, surcharges for roaming will be capped at a maximum of €0.05 per minute for calls, €0.02 for SMSs and €0.05 per megabyte for data.

The countries also wanted telecoms companies to be able to recover wholesale roaming costs — a battle they won.

Net neutrality

The sides had clashed most on open Internet rules, also known as net neutrality, with Council favoring a less strict approach, which allowed more traffic management for telecoms companies. Parliament fought for a more absolute guarantee for traffic being treated equally.

There was heated debate over whether telecoms operators should be able to sequester parts of their networks for specialized services, such as e-health provision. Parliament argued they should only be able to do so if there was no impact on Internet access for other parts of the network. Council wanted to soften the wording so that a slight impact would be permitted.

In the end, the sides decided that sequestering will be acceptable, as long as it doesn’t affect “general” quality of Internet access, according to the Latvian presidency.

Not everyone will be happy, with net neutrality advocates unlikely to be satisfied with the compromise.

What happens next?

Now that the sides have reached an in-principle agreement at the three-way negotiations, the details will need to be fine-tuned and approved formally by each party in the coming days.

NIS directive also moves forward

During the break in telecoms negotiations on Monday, the Latvian presidency also took a small step forward on the network and information security (NIS) directive.

At a meeting sandwiched between the two-part telecoms trilogue, Parliament and Council reached an understanding on the main principles to be included in the upcoming directive. These will now be drafted into legal provisions. It’s been a long time coming, with NIS stuck in a similar stalemate as the telecoms package over the last year.

“The rise of cyber attacks is one of the greatest threats we are facing, and today’s agreement on the global package is a big step towards the finalisation of the first EU-wide measures to counter this threat,” said Raimonds Vējonis, Latvian minister for defense.

The three sides are aiming for an agreement under the Luxembourgish presidency, which will take on the six-month rotating presidency of the Council on July 1.