MEPs extend deadline for EU postal liberalisation

STRASBOURG: EU postal services should be given two more years before complete liberalisation, MEPs said on Monday.

Parliament’s transport committee voted overwhelmingly on Monday evening to back a report by German centre-right MEP Markus Ferber that set the date for full liberalisation at 31 December 2010, rather than 1 January 2007 as proposed by the European commission.

“We believe that this compromise date is more likely to win majority support from member states,” said Ferber, adding that the countries that were not part of the EU in 2002, when the last phase of market liberalisation was agreed, would benefit from a further two years to December 2012.

Ferber recognised that, despite the efforts of the German presidency to reach an agreement on opening up postal services to greater competition, there was still considerable disagreement among member states on this issue.

“The issue of financing for guaranteeing the universal service – the obligation to supply postal services to everyone in the EU wherever they live and at a reasonable cost – remains controversial in council,” Ferber told journalists.

“Some member states ask how this service will be paid for if there are no more monopolies – through state aid or compensation or other means.”

“But experience in the markets where full liberalisation has taken place suggests that there is not always a need to finance this obligation at all.”

Ferber gave the example of the UK, where there are 18 different companies competing with the Royal Mail in the liberalised market.

The Royal Mail has been delivering and collecting post in the UK for 350 years, and its sheer size means that it is the obvious choice to meet the universal service obligation.

But this has not stopped other companies from entering the market – the Royal Mail signs access agreements with rival operators agreeing to give them access to its sorting and delivery operations.

In essence, this means that though other companies can collect and sort mail from businesses (and occasionally individuals) across the country, the delivery is always carried out by a Royal Mail postman or woman.

The agreements made with rival operators allow the Royal Mail to cover the cost of operating the universal service without any need for state aid or compensation or any other form of external financing.

MEPs on the transport committee decided to give member states the right to decide for themselves how to pay for this service, with national financing plans to be drawn up by 1 January 2010 and approved by the commission.

Other amendments voted by the committee include an explicit clause on consumer protection – ensuring a uniform cost for delivering mail within each country, regardless of the distances concerned – on the monitoring of complaints and on the secrecy of the postal service.

And in a bid to stave off concerns about ‘social dumping’, MEPs also agreed that any new market entrants would be obliged to stick with existing postal agreements on wages – a lesson learned from the fracas surrounding the wider services directive last year.

France is one of the countries that has expressed the greatest reservations about the plans to open up postal services, but French MEP Christine de Veyrac said she was happy with the committee vote.

“Putting back the date of liberalisation of the postal sector will give us time to improve the commission’s proposal,” she said.

“But I still have concerns about the lack of guarantees about how the universal service will be funded.”

British Green MEP Jean Lambert was less happy, saying the compromise would “have a negative impact on employment conditions”.
 
“New market entrants with lower employment standards would have an unfair competitive advantage over the incumbent service provider, which would put the incumbent under pressure to lower its standards.”

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