Corbett accuses EU of being unfair on mail changes
THE UK postal regulator rounded on Brussels yesterday and accused it of “unfairly” questioning Britain’s commitment to ending the Royal Mail’s monopoly on delivering letters.
Gerald Corbett, chairman of PostComm, the body tasked with recommending how far and how fast the British postal market should be liberalised, claimed yesterday that Britain was “significantly ahead” of most other European countries and did not deserve to be criticised by the European Commission.
In an attack that surprised observers, he accused Brussels of failing to appreciate the progress Britain had made to introduce competition through a licence system for mail operators. “In the UK, the whole market is now open subject to PostComm’s licensing regime, and above the 350 grams limit does not even require that,” Mr Corbett told a conference in Brussels.
“To that extent it is, in my view, fair to say that the UK has taken the opening of its postal market significantly ahead of the game. It is therefore a pity that this does not seem to be widely understood in Brussels.”
Singling out Frits Bolkestein, Europe’s Internal Market Commissioner, who has proposed reducing the Continent’s postal monopolies from 350g to 50g, he said afterwards: “I think the people in Bolkestein’s directorate have tended to categorise the UK as being completely Luddite in its approach to the postal market, which I think is actually quite unfair.” He added: “What Bolkestein wanted was to get support for his directive and the UK didn’t support that.”
Mr Corbett’s attempt to shame the Commission provoked a cool response in Brussels. “It is proof that we have succeeding in embarrassing them,” one EU diplomat said.
