On 11 February 2022, in their joint governmental meeting, the Governments of Romania and of the Republic of Moldova signed the Agreement on reducing the tariffs for the provision of services of international roaming and international calls between the two countries. The Agreement was concluded for an initial period of 5 years. The National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Moldova (ANRCETI) and the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) granted technical support in the process of negotiation and elaboration of the said Agreement, which will benefit the electronic communications users from both states.

“The signing of this Agreement is the result of the continuous efforts made by the authorities of both countries in the last years. We are happy we managed to reach this moment and that the electronic communications users from our countries will be able to communicate at tariffs as close as possible to the national ones”, Mr. Vlad Ștefan STOICA, president of ANCOM, said on the occasion of the Agreement signing.

“The users from both our countries greatly need to be able to communicate, cross-border, without the worry of receiving high invoices. The implementation of this Agreement will allow us to take the necessary measures so that the citizens could feel its direct effects”, said Mr. Andrei MUNTEAN, deputy director of ANRCETI.

The Agreement aims at creating the framework for the collaboration between the Romanian side and the side of the Republic of Moldova with a view to sustainably reducing the tariffs for the provision on the retail market of the international roaming services: voice, SMS and data, respectively of international calls services between the two states.

Thus, the regulatory scope of the Agreement covers the mobile communications traffic achieved by the users of the operators from the Republic of Moldova, roaming on the networks of the operators from Romania and vice versa.

Furthermore, the Agreement contains provisions concerning the international calls to the Republic of Moldova incoming from Romanian telephone numbering, respectively the international calls incoming from numbering belonging to the Republic of Moldova.

The Agreement will come into force as soon as the finalisation of the required national procedures are mutually notified, and ANRCETI and ANCOM will support the implementation of its provisions.

Each party of the Agreement will ensure, in accordance with the national legislation, that the operators in their respective country negotiate in good will with any requester the technical and commercial conditions for the provision of the following services:

·        interconnection in view of terminating in their own networks the calls and SMS-type messages incoming from numbers of the other party’s state, as well as, if applicable,

·        international transit of calls and SMS-type messages incoming from numbers of the other party’s state to networks in their state.

The parties will encourage the sustainable reduction of the tariffs for the provision on the retail market of the services of international roaming, respectively of international calls between the two countries within 3 months from the date the Agreement becomes effective.