Commissioners split over plan to liberalise EU postal market

Date: 25/05/2000

By Peter Chapman

SINGLE market chief Frits Bolkestein is battling to overcome opposition from a key group of European Commission colleagues to his plans to slash the monopolies currently enjoyed by Europe's post offices.

A fierce debate has been raging within the EU executive ever since Bolkestein circulated his draft proposals to other departments earlier this month.

Six Commissioners voiced serious misgivings about the politically sensitive plan - which would cut the area of the letters business which member states can 'reserve' for their post offices from 350 to 50 grammes, and open up direct 'junk mail' and outgoing cross-border mail to competition across the Union by 2003 - at a meeting of their advisors last week.

Sources say the six - France's Michel Barnier and Pascal Lamy, Greece's Anna Diamantopoulou, Belgium's Philippe Busquin, the UK's Neil Kinnock and Portugal's António Vitorino - fear the proposals go too far, risk damaging public post offices' ability to meet their obligations to provide 'universal services' in rural areas, and could lead to massive job losses in the sector.

But other Commissioners, including budget chief Michaele Schreyer and enterprise supremo Erkki Liikanen, argue that the proposals do not go far enough, with Liikanen calling for a firm deadline for full liberalisation to be set. "It shows that we are in the middle of the road," said one Bolkestein aide.

Talks were continuing this week between the Commissioners' cabinets on the details of the measures, with the most heated debate focusing on plans to ensure 'special services' which go beyond the post offices' basic letter delivery activities are liberalised.

Post offices fear the move, which would affect all express deliveries and profitable new 'integrated services', could encroach on those activities currently within their 'reserved area'. They claim it would cover services such as 'hybrid mail' or 'print and mail' where data such as bank statements is collected and sent via e-mail to a central office for electronic receipt, sorting and transmission via traditional letter post.

Edouard Dayan, chairman of the postal lobby group Post Europ's regulatory committee and the EU's social committee on postal issues, said it would effectively liberalise the market because it would be impossible to make a distinction between traditional and hybrid mail.

He also accused Bolkestein of trying to sneak through radical liberalisation measures through the back door. "We are living in the shadows. This was never discussed before. We never had an order from the Council of Ministers or MEPs to look at special services. There were no studies on this," added Dayan, who is also a director of French operator La Poste.

Bolkestein's staff say the special services proposals are merely aimed at ending "contradictions" in the existing 1997 directive, adding that the Commission's legal service have reviewed the wording of the measures and had not called for any significant changes to the spirit of the text.

They say this has boosted the Commissioner's hopes of victory at next Tuesday's (30 May) meeting of the full College, which is due to take a decision on the plan. "If we do not cross the rubicon now, we never will," insisted one, although he admitted that the outcome was far from certain.

But even if Bolkestein manages to persuade fellow Commissioners to endorse his proposals, their fate will depend on the outcome of discussions in the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the plan. EU governments must approve the package by qualified majority vote, which means that opponents of the proposals led by France could demand, and win, wholesale changes.

Single Market chief Frits Bolkestein is battling to overcome opposition from a key group of European Commission colleagues to his plans to slash the monopolies currently enjoyed by Europe's post offices.