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EUROPEAN UNION

Free roaming and flight compensation: How the EU has changed your life

With Europeans heading to the polls for the EU-wide parliament elections, it's a good time to remind ourselves of how the bloc has changed life for consumers.

Published: 7 June 2024 12:00 CEST
Plugs for mobile charger next to a European flag.
A picture taken on February 6, 2020 in Brussels shows plugs for mobile charger next to a European flag. The European Parliament demanded that the EU urgently force tech companies to adopt a universal charger, setting up a clash with Apple and its widely used iPhone connector cable. (Photo by Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD / AFP)

One currency

The Deutsche mark, the franc, the Italian lira and the peseta are distant memories.

Two decades ago, countries began to ditch their national currencies to adopt the euro.

Today, 20 of the European Union’s 27 members use the euro as their sole legal tender.

Money transfers can now be made without fees between eurozone countries while travellers no longer have to worry about foreign exchange rates.

The euro has even gained acceptance in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, whose citizens had initially feared the currency would cause prices to rise.

Germans nicknamed the euro the “teuro” — a play on words that combines “euro” with the German word for “expensive” “teuer”.

The debt crisis that hit Greece and other eurozone nations in the 2010s put the currency through its biggest test, but countries launched financial support measures to help their neighbours and fend off fears of a breakup of the monetary union.

Europeans do not seem to miss their old currencies: a European Commission survey in late 2023 showed that 79 percent of people living in the eurozone believe the euro is a good thing for the EU.

Free roaming

The end of roaming fees across the EU in 2017 was a life-changer for the bloc’s residents.

People no longer have to worry about running up expensive phone bills when crossing borders.

Kevin Eon, a Frenchman who works at a startup based in the Netherlands, kept his French phone number after his move, saving him the trouble of acquiring a local SIM card.

“It makes life easier,” Eon said. “It’s a huge time saver.”

One phone charger

Another phone revolution is a rule coming into force later this year imposing one type of charger for all portable electronic devices.

All manufacturers selling in the bloc will be obliged to use the USB-C port on phones, tablets, speakers and other portable tech.

Most devices already use these cables, but Apple was more than a little reluctant.

The firm said in 2021 that such regulation “stifles innovation”, but by September last year it had begun shipping phones with the new port.

Flight compensation

The EU has taken steps to protect the rights of air travellers.

Airlines must compensate passengers between €250 and €600 ($270 and $650) in case of long delays or flight cancellations.

Companies are also required to provide beverages, meals and accommodation, if necessary.

Airlines, however, can cite “extraordinary circumstances” to avoid compensating passengers, frequently leading to legal disputes.

Cookie consent

Since 2018, the EU’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) forces websites to ask for consent before installing “cookies” — the programmes that track internet activity in order to create targeted advertising.

Instead, people now have to deal with pop-up windows that ask them for consent.

“It’s annoying sometimes. Other times, I don’t care,” said Marta Riboni, a 27-year-old Italian. “It depends how much time I have.”

Member comments

  1. „Teuer“ in German means expensive. „Cheap“ as you wrote here means „billig“ or „günstig“ in German. What you probably wanted to convey is a common observation in Germany, that most everyday goods became more expensive upon the introduction of the Euro.

  2. The correction hasn’t yet been made: It still says that “teuer” means “cheap” when it’s actually the opposite. Probably the same root as “dear”, which is used in the UK as a synonym for “expensive”.

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ECONOMY

France and Italy face spending rebuke from EU

The European Union was expected to issue warnings to France, Italy and several other governments over excessive spending after new budget rules came into force this year.

Published: 19 June 2024 08:59 CEST
France and Italy face spending rebuke from EU

The rebuke comes at a particularly difficult moment for France, where both the far left and far right are piling up spending promises ahead of snap polls triggered by President Emmanuel Macron’s crushing EU election defeat.

This will be the first time Brussels has reprimanded nations since the EU suspended the rules because of the 2020 Covid pandemic and the energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as states propped up businesses and households with public money.

The EU spent two years during the suspension overhauling budget rules to make them more workable and give greater leeway for investment in critical areas, like defence.

But two sacred goals remain: a state’s debt must not go higher than 60 percent of national output, with a public deficit – the shortfall between government revenue and spending – of no more than three percent.

The European Commission will publish assessments of the 27 EU states’ budgets and economies on Wednesday, and is expected to point out that some 10 countries including Belgium, France and Italy, have deficits higher than three percent.

The EU’s executive arm has threatened to launch excessive deficit procedures, which kickstart a process forcing a debt-overloaded country to negotiate a plan with Brussels to get back on track.

Such a move would need approval by EU finance ministers in July.

Countries failing to remedy the situation can in theory be hit with fines of 0.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) a year, until action is taken to address the violation.

In practice, though, the commission has never gone as far as levying fines, fearing it could trigger unintended political consequences and hurt a state’s economy.

The EU countries with the highest deficit-to-GDP ratios last year were Italy (7.4 percent), Hungary (6.7 percent), Romania (6.6 percent), France (5.5 percent) and Poland (5.1 percent).

They may face the excessive deficit procedures, alongside Slovakia, Malta and Belgium, which also have deficits above three percent, according to Andreas Eisl, expert at the Jacques Delors Institute.

The picture is complicated for three other countries, Eisl said. Spain and the Czech Republic exceeded the three percent limit in 2023 but should be back in line this year.

Meanwhile, Estonia’s deficit-to-GDP ratio is above three percent – but its debt is around 20 percent of GDP, significantly below the 60 percent limit.

The commission will look at the states’ data in 2023 but “will also take into account the developments expected for 2024 and beyond”, the expert told AFP.

Member states must send their multi-annual spending plans by October for the EU to scrutinise and the commission will then publish its recommendations in November.

Under the new rules, countries with an excessive deficit must reduce it by 0.5 points each year, which would require a massive undertaking at a moment when states need to pour money into the green and digital transition, as well as defence.

Adopted in 1997 ahead of the arrival of the single currency in 1999, the rules known as the Stability and Growth Pact seek to prevent lax budgetary policies, a concern of Germany, by setting the strict goal of balanced accounts.

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