Letter monopoly of Deutsche Post AG was extended until 2007.

According to expectation the letter monopoly of Deutsche Post AG was
extended until 2007 last week. The coalition of the Social Democratic and Green parties together with the Socialist Party PDS from the former GDR voted in favour of the corresponding change to the postal legislation. The conservative CDU/CSU and the liberal FDP voted against the amendment. There is still a theoretical possibility that the upper house of the parliament, which will deal with the amendment in its session on 13 July, will call in the mediating committee. However, the necessary majority for such a step does not seem to exist at present.
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group still carried out a further expert hearing on Monday (2 July). With the exception of Deutsche Post AG representatives, none of the experts spoke in favour of an extended monopoly. The Federal Association of Courier, Express and Postal Services (BdKEP) and the Federal Association of International Express and Courier Services (BIEK) introduced a new argument in favour of Deutsche Post’s liability to VAT: within the EU only public-sector enterprises were exempt from VAT liability. The associations also suggested a modification to the licensing conditions, which would enable the courier, express and postal service providers to carry out partial services of Deutsche Post AG as part of their customers orders (collection, pre-sorting and delivery of letters to sorting centres).