Press Release: Antitrust: Commission opened proceedings against Slovakia for extending postal monopoly

The European Commission requested Slovakia to clarify recent amendments to its Postal Law that may infringe EC Treaty rules on the abuse of dominant market positions (Article 82) in conjunction with the Treaty rules requiring Member States to ensure that measures concerning public undertakings and undertakings to which Member States give special or exclusive rights comply with all Treaty rules including the antitrust rules (Article 86). The amendments in question extend the monopoly of Slovenská Pošta to the delivery of so-called 'hybrid mail' services (i.e. where the content - e.g. invoices - is electronically transferred from the sender to the postal service operator who then prints, envelopes, sorts and delivers the postal items). This activity was open to competition before the amendments. The Commission alleges as a consequence, postal operators which had entered this market are now prevented by law from continuing their activity, and their commercial viability is at risk. The Commission has therefore informed Slovakia that it might adopt interim measures to require the new provisions to be suspended so as to prevent serious and irreparable harm to competition. The Commission's request takes the form of a 'letter of formal notice', the first step in formal procedures under Article 86. The Slovak Government now has two weeks to provide observations on the interim measures and one month to reply to the Commission's general assessment. Depending on the response, the Commission may adopt a decision based on Article 86(3) of the EC Treaty to require the law to be amended to remove the new restrictions.