Brussels, 11/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The postal operators of ten Member States (Belgium, Cyprus, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta and Poland) express in a press release their concern about the absence of concrete responses on the part of the European Commission concerning the future financing of the universal postal service. They welcome the recent statements by Commissioner McCreevy who recommends keeping the universal service in the next legislative proposal that will totally liberalise the postal sector by 2009 (see EUROPE 9282). Operators are concerned, however, that there is no evidence to show how effective the measures being studied are when it comes to financing the universal postal service, despite a first call for caution in July (see EUROPE 9242).
The financing measures for the universal service recommended by the Commission provide for recourse to public markets or to State aid, and the possibility of cross subsidies for operators in charge of the universal service, and the creation of national compensation funds to which all operators contribute (see EUROPE 9282). The ten operators regret that the measures were not tested for their economic or operational impact and that they do not provide the legal security required. If these measures are implemented, they could even reduce the scope and quality of the universal service and restrict access by citizens, they say. In their view, it is therefore “essential” to identify and test really effective measures to finance the universal service before doing away with the reserved domain, the only measure, they say, which has so far been shown to be effective when it is defined in the appropriate manner. (mb)