The European Commission has opened negotiations to bring six Western Balkan partners into the European Union's Roam Like at Home system, a move that could eventually end mobile roaming surcharges for travellers between the EU and the region. The talks began on 6 November and cover Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, according to the European Commission.

Under the plan, mobile customers travelling between the EU and the six partners would use their phones at domestic rates, as EU citizens already do when travelling inside the bloc. The Commission said the move follows an announcement by its president, Ursula von der Leyen, during her visit to the Western Balkans in October, and forms part of a wider effort to give candidate countries access to selected benefits of European integration before their membership talks conclude.

The Council of the European Union authorised the negotiations in June. Once agreements are finalised and the partners have fully aligned their rules with EU roaming law, the Commission will invite the Council to extend the EU roaming area to cover them. No date has been set for the new arrangements to take effect, and charges remain unchanged for now.

The EU's Roam Like at Home system has operated since 2017, removing standard roaming surcharges for temporary travel within the area it covers. Extending it to the Western Balkans would be a practical, everyday benefit of closer ties, and the Commission presented it as an example of integrating neighbouring countries into European structures step by step rather than waiting for full membership.