Cross-border parcel delivery rates should be published on an EU-backed website to “improve transparency”, bring down prices and help boost cross-border e-commerce in Europe, EU ministers have agreed.
European communications ministers agreed at a European Council meeting last week on a package of measures which they said would make cross-border parcel delivery services in the EU “more transparent and better monitored”. The measures are based on the European Commission’s proposal from last year to tackle obstacles to cross-border parcel deliveries in Europe as part of efforts to boost e-commerce under the digital single market.
The European Parliament is expected to vote on the Commission’s proposal during its plenary session later this week.
Increased price transparency and more effective oversight should make the market more efficient and help bring down those tariffs which are not fully justified by objective factors such as wages or geographical distance, said the European Council, which represents EU member states.
Under the Council’s ‘general approach’, the European Commission will set up a website to display the cross-border delivery rates offered by delivery firms. This dedicated website will make it easier for consumers and companies to compare rates and choose the best ones.
Small delivery companies will be excluded from the obligation to provide their rates as that would create an excessive administrative burden for both the companies and the national administrations collecting the information, the Council clarified.
More transparent and, ultimately, cheaper pricing is expected to bolster cross-border online purchases in the EU. While 44% of consumers buy online in their own country, only 15% order online from another member state, citing high delivery charges as one of the main reasons for avoiding cross-border purchases. Cheaper and more transparent pricing could also encourage more retailers to sell online, the Council said.
"We hope these new rules will lower delivery prices for citizens, especially those living in rural areas, and also for small businesses, which have limited negotiating power to strike good delivery deals," said the Maltese presidency.
The draft rules also give regulators powers to monitor developments in the parcel delivery market better. Delivery firms will have to provide their national regulator with various sets of data, thereby enabling the regulators to assess prices and identify market failures. Regulators in several countries currently do not have access to such data, which hampers the monitoring of competition in the parcel markets.
The Council text includes special provisions for the monitoring and, where required, assessment of prices offered by universal service providers. These operators are required to provide affordable and cost-oriented services and receive certain concessions in return, such as exemption from VAT. The penalties to be imposed in the event of infringements will be laid down by member states.
Last week’s vote by the European Council is the latest stage in a long process of proposals and consultations.
In May 2016, as part of its Digital Single Market strategy, the EC proposed that national postal regulators should be supplied with data to monitor cross-border markets and to check the affordability and cost-orientation of prices; that it would publish the public listed prices of universal service providers “to increase peer competition and tariff transparency”; and that there should be “transparent and non-discriminatory third-party access” to cross-border parcel delivery services and infrastructure.
Last December, however, some EU ministers warned that the proposals could go too far by obliging postal operators to provide commercially sensitive information and to open up delivery networks to competitors. The Council published a progress report which questioned whether a regulation only covering public postal operators might distort competition, and suggested adding other parcel operators to the paragraph on tariff transparency (§4) while removing the paragraphs on publication of terminal dues (§4.2), assessing tariff affordability (§5) and third-party access (§6).
Brussels’ proposals have been repeatedly criticised by European postal operators as unnecessary given the existing competition between different players for cross-border deliveries. Publication of prices, regulatory assessment of tariff ‘affordability’ and third-party access to parcel delivery services have proven the most controversial issues.
Botond Szebeny, PostEurop Secretary General, said at the European Post & Parcel Services conference in Amsterdam in March, that the European Commission “has not justified why intervention is needed” in the fast-growing cross-border parcels market where there is increasing competition between a rising number of players.
