Abstract
On 1 January 2006, the weight threshold of the reservable area under the EC postal services Directive 97/67 as amended by Directive 2002/39 (hereinafter: ‘Postal Directive’) reduces to 50 grams from 100 grams. The price threshold, which must also be met for mail to be within the reservable area, will be reduced from 3 times to 2.5 times the standard price for basic priority mail items. In most member states, the incumbent’s statutory monopoly is expected to be reduced in line with the requirements and timescales of the EC Directive, with no definite plans as yet for full liberalization. By contrast, Sweden achieved full liberalization in 1993.
The authors are grateful to their colleagues in Bird & Bird’s various offices for their input into this paper concerning the regulatory position in their respective jurisdictions, as follows: Indiana de Seze (Belgium), Fleur Herrenschmidt (France), Georg Terhorst (Germany), Eutimio Monaco (Italy) and Henrik Nilsson and Josefine Jonsson (Sweden).
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References
Case C-320/91, ECR (1993) 1-2533.
The European Commission similarly drew a distinction regarding Spanish legislation, between basic letter services and international express services: Commission Decision 90/456/EEC, OJ (1990) L233/19.
Case C-340/99, ECR (2001) I-4109.
Commission Report on the application of the Postal Directive, SEC (2005) 388 and the underlying Commission Staff Working Paper COM(2005)102 final, both of which are published on the Commission’s website http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/post/studies_en.htm
Decision of 23 October 2001, OJ (2002) L120/19.
Case C-18/88, GB-Inno-BM (1991) ECR I-5941.
Case T-490/04, Germany v Commission and Case T-493/04, Deutsche Post AG v Commission, OJ (2005) See 31/29.
Swedish Government Office Report SOU 2005:5
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Eccles, R., Kuipers, P. (2006). Postal Services Regulation In Europe. In: Crew, M.A., Kleindorfer, P.R. (eds) Progress toward Liberalization of the Postal and Delivery Sector. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, vol 49. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29744-6_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-29744-6_19
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