Brussels, 16/07/2007 (Agence Europe) - The opinion of the European Parliament opens the way to total but controlled liberalisation of the postal services in the European Union. It also led to a variety of responses from interest groups last week (EUROPE 9466).
Public postal operators from twelve Member States (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland and Slovakia) took note in a press state of the, “improvements introduced by the EP”, which significantly amend the legislative proposal. They also gave a positive response to the proposals for, “funding the universal service and the risks of social dumping” as well as, “the reference to economic functions and territorial and social cohesion” in the European postal services. Nonetheless, they highlight the fact that the postponement of the final opening of the postal markets “do not constitute a response to the numerous legal, economic and technical questions” that are still on the table and the twelve postal operators are calling on the Council to follow the cautious approach adopted by the EP and help enhance the draft directive by respond ding to these questions.
The Free and Fair Postal Initiative (FFPI) has expressed its disappointment with the extra time granted by MEPs before the postal sector is fully liberalised. They said that they regretted the delay of the Ferber report, which regrettably reduced the goals contained in the legislative proposals. Philippe Bodson, FFPI President, commented: "We are convinced that 2009 is the right time for ending postal monopolies across Europe and we hope that the Council will work, under the Portuguese Presidency, towards an agreement that will be closer to the spirit and the text of the Commission proposal. Citing the example of the experience acquired in Member States that had already opened up their postal markets or were in the process of doing so, the FFPI is convinced that this opening up will guarantee the maintaining of a universal service, as well as legal security for sector employees, users and investors and would increase choice and quality of services, as well as reduce costs for consumers.
Despite the delay, the EAPME, the European craft and SME employers' organisation, welcomed the
outcomes of the plenary vote on the Postal Services Directive at the European Parliament and stated in a press release that there guarantees for universal service. It underlined that, “this is of the utmost importance for small users of postal services such as crafts and SMEs, which have no bargaining power with service providers and cannot benefit from economies of scale as larger enterprises”.
Jon Pedersen of the UNI-Europa union federation said in a press release that they were disappointed but explained that their “Save Our Post Office” campaign would now put pressure on European governments to insert safeguard proposals in to the legislation. (mb)