The Swiss Council of States has decided to keep the monopoly of Swiss Post on letters up to 50gafter the National Council voted in October against the government’s plan to end Swiss Post’s
monopoly in the near future.In this second parliamentary session this week, the Council of States still had the possibilityto decide in favour of postal liberalisation, according to Swiss media reports. But if it hadapproved the market opening, it would have had to submit a report three years after the revisedpostal law came into force about the expected consequences of the full market liberalisation.
Initially, the Council of States had approved the gradual opening of the Swiss postal market.Thereby, the remaining monopoly of Swiss Post would have been lifted one year after the revisedpostal law came into force. But the upper chamber voted in favour of the monopoly as the NationalCouncil did previously.
However, both parliamentary chambers decided the government should re-assess the situation againthree years after the revised postal law comes into force.
The Council of States agreed on a compromise regarding the basic service. While the NationalCouncil wanted mail to be distributed at least on five working days a week in areas inhabitedall-the-year, the Federal Council proposed to have the possibility to decide on exceptions. TheCouncil of States now decided that these exceptions would be valid only for individual householdsif the delivery is linked to disproportional difficulties.
Another important issue concerned the indirect press subsidiaries. The National Council hadincreased the budget for these and decided to subsidise the delivery of newspapers with CHF 50million annually instead of the CHF 30 million proposed by the Federal Council. The Council ofStates finally voted by 21 votes to 19 for the higher figure of CHF 50 million with CHF 30 millionaimed for regional and local press and CHF 20 million for the membership and foundation press.However, the Federal Council has still to decide which newspapers to support.
Two months ago, the Swiss Parliament rejected full liberalisation of the postal market with theNational Council voting in favour of Swiss Post’s monopoly on letters weighing up to 50g. Thegovernment had proposed to decide on full liberalisation one year after the revised postal law cameinto force, with the option of a public referendum on the controversial topic. But the NationalCouncil decided to retain the basic service mandate as part of the new postal law to ensurenationwide coverage.
