Commission moves against Member States for failure to implement EU legislation
Postal services
The Commission is sending reasoned opinions to Austria, France and Greece for failing to implement the Second Postal Directive (2002/39/EC) by the agreed date of 31 December 2002. The Directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in June 2002 (see IP/02/671, IP/02/406 and IP/01/1420).
Until national legislation is modified to reflect the obligations to which Member States committed themselves in adopting this Directive, companies will not be fully able to provide a number of postal services that the Directive has opened to competition. This may deprive citizens and businesses from enjoying the benefits expected from the liberalisation process, in terms of price and quality.
The Directive aims to further open postal services to competition in a gradual and controlled way, while allowing for the safeguarding of quality universal services (i.e the services required to be provided to all members of the public at an affordable price). Its main provisions require Member States to open certain market segments to competition in 2003 and 2006.
In January 2003, the Commission sent letters of formal notice the first stage of the infringement procedure – to the eight Member States that had not implemented the Directive by the agreed date. Since then, five Member States (Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal) have notified the Commission that they have written the Directive into national law.
Austria, France and Greece have also begun the implementation process and Austria and France have introduced some administrative measures to partially remedy the effects of the delay. Given that this delay is already over six months, the Commission will continue the formal infringement procedures against Austria, France and Greece to help ensure that any further delay is minimised.
The Commission has also decided to send a reasoned opinion requesting Greece to bring its legislation in line with the First Postal Directive (97/67/EC). The aim of this Directive is to introduce common rules for the development of the internal market in postal services and for the improvement of quality of service, including the safeguarding of the universal postal service.
The Directive prevents Member States from requiring companies to obtain an explicit decision from the authorities before commencing the provision of “non-universal” postal services, though registration or declaration procedures can be applied. Greece still requires such an explicit decision, which the Commission considers an unjustified obstacle to the provision of postal services.
Furthermore, the Directive specifies the conditions under which Member States can introduce a fund to compensate a universal service provider for the burden it may incur in meeting its obligations. Such funds aim to ensure the financial viability of the provision of the universal postal service. The Commission has requested Greece to modify the conditions under which companies operating non-universal services may be requested to contribute to such a fund, to bring them into line with the Directive.
