Brussels - The European Commission on Tuesday proposed a price cap of 0.11 euros (0.16 dollars) on a text message sent by European Union mobile phone customers while travelling elsewhere in the 27-member bloc.

This compares with current average EU prices of 0.29 cents per SMS. The proposed cap, which excludes VAT charges, is to come into effect on July 1, 2009, Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said.

Reding said the EU executive was forced to impose the new rules after mobile phone operators failed to bring down what it considers to be "unjustifiably high" prices on their own initiative.

"Sending an SMS or surfing the internet with your mobile phone while abroad should not be substantially more expensive than when doing so at home," Reding said.

A Danish study recently found that it costs mobile phone operators just 0.01 euros to send a text message.

The commission also wants to bring down further the roaming prices of telephone calls and of surfing the internet.