Post liberalisation pace set to slow

Support is growing among member states for an Italian compromise proposal which would slow the pace of postal liberalisation foreseen for the EU.

Ten out of 15 governments now believe that the second stage of the liberalisation process envisaged by the European Commission should be put off indefinitely.

However, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain remain committed to wider market opening and insist the draft directive must include a concrete timetable.

Signs of deepening divisions over the issue have emerged in talks between member state officials over recent weeks designed to lay the groundwork for an agreement by ministers.

Unless two or more of these five countries can be persuaded to switch allegiance, negotiators are unlikely to reach an agreement on the sensitive dossier before their ministers meet on 27 June.

The negotiations are bound to be influenced by the fact that MEPs last week voted overwhelmingly in favour of curbing the Commission's liberalisation ambitions.

In a vote which angered private courier firms, the assembly staked out a protectionist position, voting to keep direct mail and incoming cross-border mail on the list of services to be reserved for state companies.

UK Socialist rapporteur Brian Simpson argued that these lucrative parts of the postal business would have to be kept under monopoly control if post offices were to bear the cost of universal service - the principle that every address should be reachable by post.

'If you take away both of these areas from the reserved sector, you immediately put some 20% of the income generated by national postal administrations at the mercy of private operators, the majority of whom are American', Simpson told the assembly before the vote. 'At a stroke, the ability to finance a universal service is put seriously at risk'.

That is an argument much used by state post offices, but one which private post firms reject. 'These areas are open to competition in the Netherlands and there they have universal service. If we decide to exclude them, then only 2% of the total market will be opened to competition. It is a joke,' said Anton van der Lande of EEO, an organisation which represents courier companies.

But none of the courier companies are laughing. With member states adopting an increasingly conservative stance on this issue, they appear to be losing ground in the battle to win a share of Europe's postal business.

Reluctance to break with inherited systems has been particularly marked in the postal sector. Even in the UK, a country known for its espousal of free market values, the government was forced to retreat, at the last minute, from plans to privatise the Post Office after worries became widespread about the future of small, often rural, post offices.

With 1.34 million people employed by state post offices, which generate 1.3% of the Union's total GDP, it is hardly surprising that member states are tackling the issue with kid gloves.

Post Europe, a body which represents national post companies, points to Sweden, where one-third of state postal workers have been made redundant since liberalisation and one-third of post offices shut down. Van der Lande, however, insists that jobs shed in the public sector would be more than compensated for by an increase in the number of jobs in private courier firms.