EU Parliament votes to delay postal services free market to 2010

Members of the transport committee voted on a report by German centre-right MEP Markus Ferber that also recommended protecting consumers’ access to a uniform cost for national postal services, regardless of the distance.

However, this was not stipulated for business mail, which Royal Mail is proposing should be split into zones according to population density, with different prices for delivering to each.

The issue of funding a universal service in a liberated market remains a thorn. French MEP Christine de Veyrac said she had reservations over the problem of funding but supported the delay as this would give member nations more time to resolve this.

Postal services in the UK are already liberated. The report looked to Royal Mail as an example of success in how it offered access to competitors to its sorting and delivery services while maintaining a universal service for the public without resorting to government handouts.

So successful has Royal Mail been in opening up the UK postal market to competition that it yesterday lost a contract to deliver second-class items for Amazon worth £8m a year to a rival.

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