Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-11-Speech-1-091"
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"en.20020311.7.1-091"2
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"Mr President, the common position reached by the Council on 15 October 2001 on the opening to competition of Community postal services, is a good compromise, so we are told by the rapporteur and the governments. This includes the French socialist government, which urges us all to approve it. We, however, think that this text has been based on a series of ambiguities which may be masking many dangers.
First of all, the French Secretary of State responsible for this matter, Mr Piret, claims that less than 10% of the postal service’s turnover will be open to competition by 2009, whereas Commissioner Bolkestein estimates that 50% of the European market will be open to competition by 2006. Who is correct? Of course, Mr Piret is talking about France and Mr Bolkestein about the European Union, but even so, the huge difference between the two figures leads us to believe that there is a misunderstanding somewhere or that we are being kept in the dark.
The second ambiguity is we are told that the new directive will enable the market to be opened in a gradual and controlled fashion. However, if we look closely at the proposed arrangements, we might have some doubts over the quality of this control. The intermediate stage, which is 1 January 2006, when the weight of mail still not open to competition will be brought down from 100g to 50g, or halved, will be an automatic stage that has already been decided in the document before us. This will happen even though a comprehensive or appropriate impact study has not been carried out.
In these circumstances, there is a risk that the prospective impact study, which is due to start in 2006, will conclude that the essential decisions have already been taken, that they are already behind us and, once again, we will have taken an unsteady step forward without knowing exactly when and how we have passed the major milestones. This will almost be a further example of the Monnet method, but on a smaller scale.
To sum up, we are in favour of opening the market to competition, provided this would enable us to refine the postal services, but we do not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We do not want to take the risk of a poorly controlled opening of the market destroying the universal service, which would spell further disaster for the user, especially in a country such as France, where extensive rural areas could see their postal service deteriorate. That is why we believe that the 2006 stage must not be automatic, but that a comprehensive and thorough impact study must be carried out beforehand. We also require clarification of the public service obligations to impose on all operators. And, even better, we hope that it is acknowledged, Mr President, that all public services are the overall responsibility of each Member State and that these will have a free hand in the ultimate organisation of their postal service."@en1
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