EU smartphone proposals - Be afraid. Be very afraid.

This week it emerged that the European Commission in its infinite wisdom is mulling taxing high-end handsets. Under the plans, mobile phones with the likes of GPS would be subject to import tax and reclassified as “multi-function” devices. This would add 3.7 per cent to the cost of a phone with GPS and a whopping 14 per cent to one that is equipped to receive TV pictures, according to a report from the Reuters news agency.

Naturally, phone companies are put out. Quite rightly, they’re predicting that hiking prices will curtail demand at a time when cash-strapped consumers are already less likely to be investing in a new phone. But it’s not only them who’ll suffer. With mobile TV now just on the cusp of breaking through to a wider market, this proposed legislation could kill it stone dead. So that’s two industries where job cuts could result. Not great news, then, as the world’s economy is already convulsing as a result of the credit crunch.

But if you find it hard to sympathise with big multinationals, lest we forget it’s the European consumer who’ll foot the bill in the long run. Not only will you and I be charged extra for mobile phones, but we’ll also be denied access to the best, bleeding edge technology. This is a point succinctly made by a spokesperson for Nokia, who noted that “the proposal would put the latest technology out of the reach of European consumers as it would simply push up the price of sophisticated mobile phones”.

What’s especially ironic about all this is that it comes in the week that the commission has unveiled guidelines to EU members states about how to boost mobile television take-up. But by taxing TV-equipped smartphones to this punitive degree what they’re proposing could be the death knell of this very technology.