Brussels, 05/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The first exchange of view of the "Telecommunications" Council on the Commission proposal for the "gradual and controlled" liberalisation of the postal services, which took place on Tuesday in Luxembourg (see EUROPE of 3 October) confirmed the divergences. According to a source close to the Commission, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Greece and Portugal feel that the proposal goes "too fast too far", while Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Finland and Sweden support it. England, Belgium and Ireland are still undecided.
Frits Bolkenstein, the Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market, announced that "any obstacle to an agreement to accelerate the liberalisation would contribute to a confused image of Europe and would indicate that it does not seriously take into account the Lisbon agenda". During a press conference, he spoke out against the reproaches for wanting to accelerate the process. "The reform started in 1989, the first opening of 3% took place in 1997, and we are proposing the opening of 20% in 2003. I do not think that 14 years mean a quick pace", he said. He feel that the gradual liberalisation generally guarantees universal service. Christian Pierret, Secretary of State to the French Ministry for the Economy and Finances, was against, as representative of France, to the liberalisation in 2003 and to the new definition of special services. "We want uniform quality over the whole territory and to maintain a postal service for all. Forced liberalisation is not necessary. Any compromise will have to respect the principal of public service, such as, for example, attention to the least well off and the rural areas", he said. He objected to the exemplary liberalisation that took place in Sweden, emphasised by Commissioner Bolkenstein that this country only has 1934 post offices, while France has 17,000". He underlined the importance of the debate, to the extent that "in Europe, more than 1,400,000 people are employed in the public sector and 400,00 in the private sector". For Frits Bolkenstein, "the increased use of new technologies lowers employment by 0.8% in a sector where, if nothing changes, this reduction risks accelerating and become irreversible".
The conclusions of the Council as they where inserted into the press release maintain the aim if reaching a "political agreement" in December. The text says:
The Council took note of the Commission presentation of its proposal, aiming to modify certain provisions of the Directive of 15 December 1997 concerning the opening to competition of the Communities postal services. The Council carried out a preliminary exchange of views on this proposal. This exchange of views that raised sometimes divergent positions among the Member States covered, in particular, the main provisions aimed at ensuring the gradual opening and mastering of the postal sector as the Commission had proposed: the introduction of the new definitions, notably special services, the limiting to 50gr and 2.5 times the basic rate of weight limits and the price of reserved services in 2003, a new stage proposed for 2007 which will be defined at a later date.
The Council entrusted the Committee of Permanent Representatives to rapidly push forward this dossier in view of enabling it to carry out a in-depth discussion, to reach a political agreement during its meeting in December.