The Commission presents a report on the application of
the Third Postal Services Directive (Directive 97/67/EC as amended
by Directive 2002/39/EC and 2008/6/EC) and the main developments
that have taken place in the postal market.
To recall, the Third Postal Services Directive
introduced the legal basis for the accomplishment of the internal
market for postal services by providing the last legislative step
in the process of gradual market opening. It set a deadline
for full market opening of:
- 31 December 2010 for 16 Member
States (Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland,
Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK)
and;
- 31 December 2012 for the remaining 11 Member
States (Cyprus, Czech Republic,
Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland,
Romania and Slovakia).
The main observations in the report are as
follows;
1) Affordable and reliable parcel delivery services
are crucial to help realise the potential of the Digital Single
Market.
- Postal services continue to play a vital role across
the European Union, although the nature of that role is changing as
new technologies are driving both e-substitution and an
increasing volume of online purchases.
- The ability to send letters and parcels to arrive
within a specified time at a definite price to all parts of the
European Union remains a fundamental contributor to social,
economic and territorial cohesion and the development of the single
market.
2) Enhanced oversight of the parcel market is
required.
- National Regulatory Authorities continue to fulfil a
crucial role underpinning and overseeing the application of and
ensuring compliance with the Postal Services Directive in Member
States. The European Regulators Group for Postal Services (ERGP),
established in 2010, has improved consultation, coordination and
cooperation among the National Regulatory Authorities at the
European level.
- Given the decline in letter volumes and growing number
of parcels driven by e-commerce sales, stronger regulatory
oversight of and more comprehensive data on the parcel market is
needed to gain a full and accurate picture of the overall postal
and parcel markets and to develop the full potential of the Digital
Single Market.
3) An affordable and reliable universal service is
provided for letters.
- All Member States, with the exception of Germany, have
formally designated the incumbent national postal operator as the
"universal service provider". In Germany, the historical national
postal operator acts as the universal service provider.
- The vast majority of domestic letters are delivered
the next working day (providing they are sent using a next day
service, rather than a deliberately slower and cheaper alternative)
and intra-EU mail delivery continues to exceed the quality
standards specified in the Directive.
- Between 2012 and 2013 tariffs for a 20-gram letter
increased on average by about 5.6%. However this had no significant
impact on the affordability of this service for EU citizens. All
Member States ensure that all providers of postal services have a
transparent, simple and inexpensive procedure for dealing with
complaints from users, and most universal service providers have a
system of compensation.
4) Need for accurate and comparable information about
net cost of universal service.
- In the event that the provision of the universal
service in a Member State results in a net cost that creates an
unfair burden on the universal service provider, the Postal
Services Directive sets out ways in which the 'net cost' of the
universal service obligation that represent an unfair financial
burden for the designated universal service provider(s) can be
compensated. However, in order to provide funding and ensure it is
compatible with rules on State aid, the costs have to be calculated
in a comparable fashion.
5) Slow development of competition for letter post and
anti-competitive behaviour.
- Despite full market opening across the EU by 2013,
competition in the letter markets has been slow to develop in most
Member States and universal service providers have retained
majority markets shares in Member States. Of the fifteen Member
States that fully opened their markets before 2011, eight had over
5% competition in the letters market (by volume) by
2013.
- Where competition in the letters market has developed,
it is more widespread for end-to-end delivery provided by operators
who created their own distribution network to deliver directly to
recipients themselves.
- In several Member States, National Competition
Authorities have condemned the provider of the universal service
for anti-competitive behaviour in form of an abuse of a dominant
position. Cases include illegal rebates to business customers,
margin squeeze and predatory pricing.
- Market entry and development of competition may also
be discouraged through some regulatory practices, such as the
imposition of license conditions for new entrants.
6) Decline in the number of letters being sent and
increase in e-substitution.
- The number of letters sent using universal services
providers in the EU has declined from an estimated 107.6 billion in
2008 to 85.5 billion in 2013. The decline rate rose to 4.85%
between 2012 and 2013 (in terms of volume) for the
EU28. Member States with more mature markets for letters have
experienced the greatest decline, and this is expected to
continue.
- Even if the decline in letter volume in less developed
postal markets is lower in relative terms it is nevertheless likely
to have a significant impact, given the smaller economies of scale
than in the more mature markets.
7) Parcels are a growth area but consumers and
e-retailers complain about the quality and cost of cross-border
delivery services.
- Estimates of the size of the European parcel market
suggest values of EUR 60 billion for the combined European courier,
parcel and express markets in 2010; EUR 47 billion in 2011
(including shipments up to 2,500kg); 28 EUR
37 billion for the parcel and express market in 2011; and EUR
53.5 billion in 2014. The number of parcels per capita does however
differ greatly between Member States.
- Competition appears to have developed to a greater
extent in the parcel market than in the letter market and 'express'
operators such as UPS, DHL, TNT and FedEx are increasingly
developing their business to consumer (B2C) services.
- Concerns do, however, persist about the affordability,
accessibility and availability of cross-border parcel delivery
services: the absence of delivery features (e.g. track-and-trace
information), poor price transparency and high prices are
repeatedly amongst the main complaints from both consumers and
e-retailers.
- The Commission launched a public consultation to help
identify solutions to improve cross-border parcel delivery and will
launch measures in the first half of 2016 to improve price
transparency and regulatory oversight of cross-border parcel
delivery.
8) Decline in employment by universal service
providers and more varied working conditions.
- Figures show a fall in the total number of staff
employed by universal service providers of about 250,000 between
2008 and 2013. Employment by universal services providers decreased
at an average rate of 4.4% in the 28 Member States between 2012 and
2013.
- In many instances modernisation has been managed in a
socially responsible way together with the trade union and early
retirements and voluntary departures have been used to minimise the
number of compulsory redundancies.
- There have, however, been significant increases in the
proportion of part-time employees in some Member States and overall
there is a trend towards more flexible forms of employment
contracts.
In conclusion, the
Commission considers that the postal market continues to evolve
rapidly and ongoing close monitoring and further analysis of
the overall postal market, and the effects of the regulatory
framework, are needed. It will publish statistics annually
from 2016 to provide regular updates on developments in the
letter and parcel markets in the European Union.