The European Commission will review whether postal operators are providing effectivecross-border parcel delivery services for e-commerce as part of its new Digital Single Market
Strategy announced yesterday.Every day in the EU people and companies run into many barriers – from geo-blocking orcross-border parcel delivery inefficiencies to unconnected e-services. Digital services too oftenremain confined to national borders, commissioners declared.
In response, the Commission aims to remove obstacles and create a Digital Single Market,enabling the EU’s single market freedoms to “go digital”, and boosting growth and jobs across thecontinent.
Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said: “Let us do away with all thosefences and walls that block us online. People must be able to freely go across borders online justas they do offline. Innovative businesses must be helped to grow across the EU, not remain lockedinto their home market. This will be an uphill struggle all the way, but we need an ambitiousstart. Europe should benefit fully from the digital age: better services, more participation andnew jobs”.
Brussels presented three main areas of action. As part of ensuring better access for consumersand businesses to digital goods and services, the Commission highlighted “facilitating cross-bordere-commerce,especially for SMEs, with harmonised consumer and contract rules and with more efficientand affordable parcel delivery”.
Today only 15% of consumers shop online from another EU country and only 7% of SMEs in the EUsell cross-border, according to Brussels figures.
One obstacle is affordable parcel delivery costs, the Commission stated. “More than 85% ofe-shoppers say delivery price is the most important factor when buying online. 62% of companiesthat are willing to sell online say that too high delivery costs are a problem.”
The other areas covered by the Commission’s Digital Single Market Strategy include simplifyingVAT arrangements to boost the cross-border activities of businesses, especially SMEs, tacklinggeo-blocking, which restricts the geographical availability of online services, reviewing digitalinfrastructure, data protection and looking into the role of online platforms, including searchengines and social media.
Speaking at the European Post and Parcel Services conference in Vienna today, Werner Stengg,head of the EC’s Public Interest Services unit, which covers the postal sector, explained that thislatest review would be a follow-up to the 2013 Roadmap, which focused on improving cross-borderdelivery in Europe.
“This year we will assess where progress is sufficient and where more has to be done. Onconvenience and quality we are seeing a lot of progress, for example with the IPC Interconnectprogramme. On transparency and visibility we have not seen so much progress and we will probablylook into this in more detail,” he told an audience of senior European postal industryexecutives.
On the topic of the postal Universal Service Obligation, Stengg cited a forthcoming researchreport which found that there are wide differences between the USO scope in EU member states.Postal incumbents also had differing views, depending on whether the USO presented more advantagesor disadvantages, he noted.
Outlining theoretical options for future USO changes, the EC official said these could includereducing delivery frequency, changing the geographical coverage, redefining access points as partof the USO and changing the speed and quality of the mail service.
However, Stengg pointed out that the USO is a “complex and politically sensitive topic” and saidthat the Commission has decided not to change the current postal directive at present, meaning in2015 or 2016. Nevertheless, he confirmed Brussels would continue to monitor the USO, adding “We allneed to think much harder about where to go next and to build consensus.”
