Tag: Germany

European commissioner for the internal market, Charlie McCreevy confirmed that the final remaining monopoly of the deliveries market maintained by national postal companies, for letters weighing less than 50 grammes, should end by 2009.

French President Jacques Chirac said in a speech to rural constituents last weekend that France would “oppose any initiative which would lead to undermining the quality of the public postal service”.

With around 330,000 staff, La Poste is the second biggest employer in France after the French state itself. But unlike other large national monopolies it has not restructured itself to deal with new competitive challenges.

On the services directive, France could rely on strong support from Germany to mitigate the effects of liberalisation. But Berlin has made getting progress on postal liberalisation one of its priorities for the internal market during its presidency. Germany has reformed its own postal service and will end Deutsche Post’s monopoly for items under 50 grammes at the end of 2007. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a recent interview that unless other EU countries were to follow suit it would put Germany at an “unacceptable competitive disadvantage”.