Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-18-Speech-5-030"
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"en.20000218.3.5-030"2
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"Mr President, we are in favour of liberalising the Union’s postal services. This should first of all stand for better service. This is the intention and it must be the ultimate goal.
Liberalisation began because there was doubt regarding the structure of the postal services and the value of a monopoly. Is a monopoly flexible enough in a market where the customer’s requirements and the market situation can change very rapidly, because, for example, the use of electronic data carriers has increased dramatically? The question is, therefore: what are the demands that a monopoly or part of a service which is governed by a monopoly needs to meet?
Most Member States have been putting the brakes on, and I am pleased to note that, in my country, the new government has at long last completed something which should have been done a long time ago, and that the Belgian postal services and the Belgian government are now taking measures to ensure that the postal services are ready – at least partly ready – by 2003 to be able to stand up to the competition.
As you can see, as a new MEP, I am trying to get to grips with the dossier and I must admit that I have great difficulty doing so. I have found a number of studies which were commissioned by the European Commission at the time, and I am also coming across documents from Post-Europe which claims that these studies are inaccurate and that the basis on which these were carried out is incorrect. I think that the Commission could have been more pro-active on this score and could have also provided us with the studies which it had promised to give us and which we had requested. As far as I know, that has still not happened. I would therefore ask you, Commissioner, to help me in my task as a new Member. Like Mr Miller, I would welcome an explanation from you regarding the implementation of the 1997 directive within the next couple of months or weeks or, if at all possible, within the next couple of days.
My second point concerns the universal provision of services. What is happening on this score, how much does it cost, how does it work, how do you intend to organise it and what proposals do you have? I would welcome more concrete information on this. Apparently, the postal service is a very strong lobby and rightly so. There are hundreds of thousands of people who earn their living at the Post Office. Moreover – and Mr Miller has already pointed this out – it will surely not be the end of the world if the postman no longer comes round, even in my country, however densely populated it may be. But in Belgium too, there are a great number of people, older people for example, who only see one other person in the day and that is the postman. We should not overlook this fact: postal service is about more than just ferrying around letters and parcels.
The postal service is also extremely important to companies. A study has shown that 90% of the postal traffic is between companies and only 10% between individuals. What exactly do you intend to liberalise? I would like more information on this, because the key question is how you can better serve the customer using the existing services. There are postal companies which have a monopoly and are doing a reasonably good job. We need to protect this type of arrangement and denounce other things."@en1
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