Brussels, 19/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has asked Slovakia to clarify recent amendments to its Postal Law (of 15 February 2008) that may lead to abuse of dominant market positions (Articles 82 and 86 of the Treaty).
The new legislative provisions in question extend the monopoly of Slovenská Pošta to the delivery of so-called “hybrid mail” services, i.e. where the content (e.g. invoices) is electronically transferred from the sender to the postal service operator who then prints, envelopes, sorts and delivers the postal items. Hitherto, this activity had been open to competition and the Commission feels that, as a consequence of the amendments, postal operators which had entered this market are now prevented by law from continuing their activity. Hybrid mail delivery is thus reserved to the incumbent postal operator, Slovenská Pošta, whose services do not appear to include additional features, such as track and trace or delivery 7 days a week, that were previously offered by private operators.
In sending a letter of formal notice, the first step in formal procedures under Article 86 of the EC Treaty, then, the Commission has informed Slovakia that it might adopt interim measures to require the new provisions to be suspended. The Slovakian government now has two weeks to provide observations on the interim measures, and one month to reply to the Commission's general assessment. The Commission may then adopt a decision based on Article 86 paragraph 3 of the EC Treaty to require the law to be amended to remove the new restrictions. “An activity which had been successfully liberalised should not be re-monopolised to the benefit of the incumbent operator,” said Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes in a press release published on Wednesday 18 June. Some postal services may continue to be reserved to the universal service provider if such reservation is necessary for the maintenance of universal service. At this stage, the Commission is not convinced that this is the case in this instance. (A.B./transl.rt)