Postal operators in Europe are calling on EU authorities to remove a controversial clause on regulatory monitoring of ‘price affordability’ from the forthcoming regulation on cross-border parcel delivery.
The regulation, which is part of the Digital Single Market strategy, is broadly aimed at supporting e-commerce and improving cross-border parcel deliveries within the EU by removing various obstacles. But postal operators have criticised proposals for new obligations in commercially sensitive areas such as pricing and third-party access.
As CEP-Research reported on Monday, the European Commission, the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament are currently drawing up a compromise text following several amendments made in July this year to the Commission’s original proposal from May 2016. This compromise text will be presented to the European Parliament’s Transport Committee (TRAN) later this month and to an EP plenary session in mid-November. Once approved, this would then be the final version of the regulation.
PostEurop, the association of European public postal operators, has now published an updated position paper covering three specific areas of concern. Under Article 4 on ‘transparency of tariffs and terminal rates’, postal operators would have to provide terminal rates to the EC and all EU national postal regulators (NRAs). Under Article 5, NRAs would assess the affordability of tariffs. Under Article 6, postal operators could be obliged to provide third-party access for cross-border parcel delivery.
Commenting on a vote by the European Parliament’s Transport Committee (TRAN) in July, PostEurop said it welcomed TRAN’s compromise amendments on article 4 deleting the requirement to provide terminal dues and article 6 removing provisions on third party access.
“We were pleased to see these two compromises received support from a majority, even if the report itself was rejected. PostEurop would therefore appreciate it if MEPs retained the compromises on articles 4 and 6 in line with the Council’s general approach,” the association commented.
Outlining its concerns, PostEurop said that when it comes to article 4, the posts have a history of price transparency but are opposed to providing the regulator with their terminal rates. “There is no justification for unconditionally requiring the posts to provide their regulator with their terminal rates, the payments they charge each other for final delivery. Under no circumstances should these be shared with other regulators because they are highly confidential and commercially sensitive,” PostEurop declared.
On article 6, PostEurop said it does not see any justification for a sector-specific provision on third party access to its members’ multilateral agreements. “In a free market like the delivery market, agreements and access to agreements are and should be part of normal commercial negotiations. No market failure has been demonstrated. Furthermore, general competition law already provides for access to multilateral agreements under certain conditions.”
However, PostEurop said it believes it is time for TRAN to go back to the drawing board when it comes to article 5 on the affordability assessment.
“As for article 5, the amendments tabled show hugely divergent views which were also reflected in the tight vote on the compromise amendment (23 in favour, 21 against, abstentions not made public). There were divergences not only on which companies’ prices should be assessed and the services that should be involved, but also the procedures and criteria and even the objective of assessing cross-border tariffs. In this situation, PostEurop questions whether merging highly divergent and potentially contradictory concepts will hinder rather than help the sector given the inevitable inconsistencies and legal uncertainties that will result.”
Given the huge divergences, PostEurop said it would therefore like to invite TRAN to consider whether it would be better to delete Article 5. “The affordability assessment involves significant resources and costs for universal service providers as well as national authorities. It also undermines the posts’ pricing strategies, thereby restricting their ability to compete in what is a highly competitive market.”
Moreover, the provision of universal services including affordable cross-border parcel delivery services is guaranteed in the Postal Services Directive, the association underlined.
“Decisions to introduce changes to the existing framework would be better left to the up-coming review of the Postal Services Directive. The study on the development of cross-border e-commerce through efficient parcel delivery to be launched by the Commission and sponsored by the European Parliament later this year will help to prepare this.”
However, if Article 5 is maintained, PostEurop said it would appreciate it if TRAN could agree on a consistent text that codifies the existing framework of the Postal Services Directive. “The added value would be to clearly allocate the competence to assess only tariffs on universal service products to the national regulatory authority. In respect of the principle of Better Regulation and in order to avoid red tape, assessments should be conducted only if the national regulatory authority, based on its market knowledge, deems an assessment necessary.”
Finally, only non-confidential versions of assessments should be shared with the Commission and other national regulatory authorities in order to protect the information contained within, the association concluded.
The PostEurop position paper was formally supported by public postal operators from 30 countries, including all current 28 EU member states as well as Iceland and Norway.
Its release followed the PostEurop Plenary Assembly in Bucharest, Romania, last week (September 27 – 29) where some 150 delegates from over 50 European postal operators and other organisations discussed diverse issues, such as postal strategies, the impact of technology, innovations and sustainability as well as regulatory issues.
PostEurop also presented several awards at its conference, with CTT (Portugal Post) winning the brand-new Innovation Award for its ‘cttads.pt’ project, while France’s La Poste, Posti and bpost were awarded the PostEurop 2017 CSR "Coups de Coeur" awards for various CSR activities.
