On Tuesday 1 December, the European Commission decided, under EU State Aid rules, to approve the compensation Italy has paid the Poste Italiane to carry out its public service mission (‘universal service obligation’) during the period 2020-2024.
Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice-President responsible for Competition Policy, explained that the decision “enables Poste Italiane to continue delivering basic postal services across the Italian territory at affordable prices, without unduly distorting competition”.
In October 2020, Italy notified the Commission of its plans to award Poste Italiane compensation of €1.3 billion for fulfilling its universal postal service obligation during the period 2020-2024 (up to maximum annual compensation of €262 million).
EU rules stipulate that Member States may award state aid to companies to compensate them for the extra costs of a public service mission, subject to certain criteria (such as not over-compensating them).
The Commission is of the opinion that Italy has submitted “the relevant information to calculate the net cost saved in respect of the universal postal service”. In addition, Italy carried out a consumer survey on the impact of ending the postal services provided by Poste Italiane using an alternative scenario where Poste Italiane did not receive any aid.
The information provided by Italy enabled the Commission to rule out the risk of overcompensation. On this basis, the measure was found to be in line with EU State Aid rules.
Poste Italiane is the main postal operator in Italy and has had the responsibility of carrying out the universal postal service obligation for the whole country since 1999. In 2019, it had 125,894 full-time equivalent employees, owned 12,809 post offices and had an annual turnover of €9.403 billion.
The Commission had previously found that the public funding Italy awarded to Poste Italiane to carry out its public service mission in the periods 2012-2015 and 2016-2019 was in line with EU State Aid rules.
In July 2019, the Commission approved €171.74 million in public service compensation that Italy awarded Poste Italiane to distribute newspapers and publications produced by non-profit publishers and organisations at reduced rates between 2017 and 2019. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)