Serbia and Bulgaria agree to reduce roaming charges

Bulgaria and Serbia are set to sign an agreement on reducing roaming charges, Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov said after a meeting with his Serbian counterpart.

Borisov and Ana Brnabic met in Sofia on Thursday on the sidelines of an international conference dedicated to stronger regional integration in the Balkans, attended also by officials from Tirana, Sarajevo, Pristina, Skopje, and Podgorica, Beta is reporting, citing the Independent Balkan News Agency.

The Bulgarian government has approved a draft memorandum of understanding between the relevant ministries of Bulgaria and Serbia on reducing international roaming tariffs for telecommunication services, the report said.

Serbia is the second country in the Western Balkans to conclude an agreement of this kind. Less than a month ago, Sofia and Skopje signed an agreement to reduce roaming charges, the agency said.

The Serbian government announced after the meeting that Brnabic and Borisov spoke about strengthening bilateral relations, economic progress, and Bulgaria's EU presidency in 2018.

On Wednesday, Brussels-based Euractiv reported that the EU commissioner in charge of digital policies, Mariya Gabriel, would announce a plan "to get rid of mobile fees between the EU and Western Balkan countries at a May 2018 summit in Bulgaria."

Gabriel told the website that she will present "a detailed set of steps at the meeting on extending the EU's ban on mobile roaming charges to Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina" and that the European Commission's legal advisors are currently preparing the plan.