Brussels, 18/12/2007 (Agence Europe) - The battle on postal services seems to be well and truly over. In its second reading vote on Tuesday 18 December, the European Parliament transport and tourism committee adopted, with no amendments, the Council's common position on the draft directive on the completion of the internal market on postal services (see EUROPE 9513). Rapporteur Markus Ferber (EPP-ED, Germany) did not, himself, bring forward any amendments and the 37 MEPs on, the committee, some of whom, last week, had met Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, who called on them stick to the Council's common position, followed this request to the letter. There is now a strong chance that the EP will move quickly to a final vote, perhaps as early as the end of January 2008, and bring the legislative process to a close in the spring. The completion of the internal market, opening handling of mail under 50 grammes in weight to competition, will take place at the end of 2010 and two years later for 11 member states (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia) who requested additional time. By coincidence, the Council's common position was published on the same day in the Official Journal of the EU (see our EU/Legislation column).
“The opening up of Europe's postal services market is a done deal,” Ferber said in a press release. He went on, “We can finally and formally adopt the directive with the plenary vote in spring”. He said there was a good legislative package on the table: “Consumers and service providers are going to profit from more competition and innovative products on the postal market”.
The amendment proposed by the GUE/NGL group, calling for the rejection of the Council's common position, was not, then, adopted. Neither were those which would have made non-binding the use of an annex to the directive setting out how to calculate net costs of meeting universal service obligations. Several Socialist MEPs put down an amendment requiring states to first ensure that the funding of the universal postal service was guaranteed at all times in an environment of competition and to notify measures that they intended to take to meet this obligation, but were, likewise, unsuccessful. The result was the same for the Greens/EFA amendment which called, as the EP had done on first reading, for a report on employment and working conditions to be presented three years after the liberalisation of the postal sector. There is change in Germany, where debate has been raging on the impact on employment of the setting of a minimum wage for German postal workers at the same time as the sector is opened up on 1 January 2008. Last week, the Bundestag overwhelmingly approved the agreement between Deutsche Post and the Verdi trade union setting the minimum hourly rate at between €8 and €9.8. This was too high for historic operator Deutsche Post's competitors, which pay an average of €7.5 per hour. Dutch company TNT said that it was giving up its plans to deliver mail to companies and individuals. Pin Group, a subsidiary of the German Axel Springer, said that a minimum wage would mean it would have to get rid of almost 1,000 jobs. According to the German employers' organisation, between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs were under threat as a result of this measure, which could be extended to other sectors. As a reprisal, the Netherlands froze the opening of its own postal market, which had initially been scheduled for the start of 2008.
“It is a clear trial of strength,” noted an expert in Brussels. He believes the definitive opening up of the market to competition will be a deadly fight between, on the one hand, the historic operators determined to retain its share of the market and fight against the risks of “wage dumping” from private competitors, reducing prices by paying their employees less, and, on the other, the new entrants who refuse to “pay for the inefficiency of historic operators” highlighting their ability to provide better and cheaper postal services. The Commission recognises that wage policy is a matter reserved to member states, but it wonders about the reasons behind the German move: is it, in this precise case, really about protecting German postal workers, or on the contrary, the historic operators which employ them?
The Council's common position, which in all likelihood will constitute the definitive version of the legislation amending the postal directive (97/67/EC), authorises member states to require operators which wish to obtain a permit to carry out their activities, to comply with certain non-economic obligations, such as working conditions and national social security systems. It requires the social partners to negotiate in a fully transparent way, within the context of the social dialogue. (M.B.)