Tag: Switzerland

Europe’s post faces law of the jungle

Posted by | Oct 2, 2007 | |

UNI-Europa Post & Logistics has condemned the decision by the Council of European Union Ministers meeting in Luxembourg to go ahead with total de-regulation in the postal sector by 2011/13.

Without clear provisions to fund the universal postal service and without secure provisions in the new directive to protect wage dumping, UNI-Europa Post & Logistics warns that post faces the law of the jungle.

Ministers agreed to full market opening of postal services by 31 December 2010 and for 11 member states by 31 December 2012. The 11 exceptions are Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
This is in line with the decision taken by the European Parliament in Strasbourg on 11 July.

The Council’s common position is due to be finally adopted at a forthcoming meeting after the second reading of the directive in the European Parliament.

Protection for some mail services, which have allowed traditional operators to cross-subsidise services to rural, mountain and island communities will disappear.

The question of financing the universal postal service obligation will be up to individual member states with the risk of adding extra burdens on taxpayers.

Individual governments and regulators will now be the focus of union pressure to ensure funding for a universal postal service and to strengthen directive provisions to prevent unfair competition.

Unions want common employment and social standards build into regulations and operating licenses to stop wage dumping and head off the replacement of decent jobs by precarious work.

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EU Agrees on Postal Competition Starting in 2011

Posted by | Oct 1, 2007 | |

European Union governments agreed to start local mail competition in 2011, two years later than Deutsche Post AG, TNT NV and other providers were seeking to expand into new countries.

Countries must open their markets to foreign competitors for delivering standard letters, in the compromise reached today at a meeting of national ministers in Luxembourg. Still, 11 of the 27 EU countries get two extra years, until 2013, to prepare their current providers.

The compromise won over France and other nations that opposed an earlier plan for competition in 2009. The initiative will end monopolies such as that of France’s La Poste in standard letters, which are two-thirds of the region’s 88 billion-euro (USD 125 billion) postal market, according to the EU executive agency.

Deutsche Post will continue to examine postal markets in Europe and elsewhere, Uwe Bensien, a spokesman in Bonn, said by telephone.

Letters up to 50 grams (1.8 ounces) are the final piece of the mail industry being opened, after a decade of phased-in deregulation. That business is more profitability than package or express delivery, according to the European Commission, the EU agency where McCreevy oversees internal market policy.

EU countries that allowed postal competition before the 2011 deadline include the U.K., Finland and Sweden. Germany and the Netherlands plan to follow suit Jan. 1.

Countries eligible for the extra two-year delay include Luxembourg, the country of half a million people whose service would be dwarfed by neighboring rivals, and Greece, with territory spread over hundreds of islands. Nine of the 12 countries that joined the EU since 2004 also gained the extra time. Estonia, Bulgaria and Slovenia will adhere to the 2011 deadline.

Portugal, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, drafted the compromise in line with a European Parliament vote in July. The initiative still needs final approval by majorities in both the Parliament and the national governments, whose votes are weighted by country population, to become law.

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