Press Release: Antitrust: Commission opens infringement proceedings against Slovakia to ensure compliance with Commission hybrid mail decision

The European Commission opened infringement proceedings against Slovakia by sending a letter of formal notice concerning its failure to implement a legally-binding Commission decision of 7 October 2008 requiring Slovakia to re-open its hybrid mail market to competition. The letter of formal notice is the first step in infringement proceedings under Article 226 of the EC Treaty. The 7 October decision found that Slovakia had illegally extended the monopoly of the incumbent operator, Slovenská Pošta, to the delivery of hybrid mail services, while this activity had until then been open to competition. The decision required Slovakia to end this infringement. To date Slovakia has not informed the Commission of any action taken in this regard. Slovakia now has two months to reply to the Commission.

European Commission: SPEECH/08/714: State aid for financing the real economy, merger approvals and Slovak Post http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/714&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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