About: Postal services Archives

While the goal of liberalising the postal sector is more or less broadly backed, divisions remain as to the 'when' and the 'how', says Professor Paul R. Kleindorfer, an expert on postal liberalisation, in an interview with EURACTIV.

Members of a key committee in the European Parliament are set to demand a delay in reforms as plans to subject Europe's postal sector to full liberalisation by 2009 sparks fury among postal workers across the continent.

The EU is entering the final stages of a 15-year process to open up its postal services to competition, having overcome differences of opinion regarding the speed of liberalisation and how to ensure a universal service for consumers. The real test will however come with the implementation phase as of 2009.

German MEP Markus Ferber, rapporteur on postal reform, has sided with his native country's view that the postal market should be fully liberalised by 2009. He shared his views with EURACTIV ahead of key Parliament committee votes on 2-8 May.

The European institutions are currently hammering out the details of a Directive, which, if approved by EU states and the European Parliament, should lead to the complete liberalisation of postal services in Europe. German MEP Markus Ferber (EPP-ED), who is in charge of steering the proposal through Parliament, tells EURACTIV what he expects from the new rules, before the vote in plenary on 5 June 2007.

Click here to read a shortened version of the interview.

In a lively debate on 11 December 2006, EU ministers held their first formal discussion on the Commission’s controversial proposal to subject postal markets to unrestricted competition by 2009.

On 18 October 2006, the Commission adopted a plan for opening up postal markets to unrestricted competition by 2009. The question now is not ‘when?’, but ‘how?’.

Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy will unveil a new proposal on 18 October 2006 to suppress lingering monopolies in the European postal services market.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 28 September 2006 ruled against the Netherlands holding a “golden share” in postal-services provider TNT.