23/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has announced that it is granting a new five-year exemption to 17 European postal service operators - all those in the EU except the Netherlands as well as those in Norway, Iceland and Switzerland - for their terminal dues system, or the "REIMS II" agreement (relating to the remuneration that such operators pay to each other for crossborder deliveries). EUROPE will come back to this.