British residents travelling elsewhere in Europe this summer will find the cost of using their mobile telephones further reduced from this month.

An EU law has forced telephone operators to drop the ‘roaming charges’ incurred when making or receiving calls by 60% compared to the pre-2009 average. The maximum price for outgoing calls is cut to 31p per minute, and to a maximum of 9p per minute for calls received when abroad. Text messages will cost no more than 9p.

Local Liberal Democrat Euro-MP, Chris Davies, said that the EU was doing the job that people wanted it to do by protecting consumers and keeping down prices.

He said: “Although the actual cost of making calls to British mobile phones when abroad is very small the operators were making huge profits out of inflated charges. It was exactly a situation when EU action was needed.”

The European Commission has already warned telephone operators that it will next year propose further reductions in the charges they are allowed to make.