European internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy has launched a strong attack on attempts by France, Belgium and Poland to delay his plan to open the postal market to full competition.
In a speech in Bulgaria yesterday, he dismissed concerns raised by the countries about the European Commission's proposal on liberalising postal services as rhetoric "hardly in line with contemporary economic thinking".
Mr McCreevy has proposed reforming the EU postal sector at the start of 2009 to enable firms to compete with national postal services, many of which are publicly owned, for the delivery of normal letters under 50 grams for the first time.
Deliveries of letters and parcels weighing over 50 grams have already been deregulated, enabling competitors to enter these markets in all member states.
However, a group of member states are proposing to block the early implementation of full liberalisation and have proposed delaying competition in the sector until at least 2011 and possibly as late as 2015.
France, Belgium, Poland and Greece all want to give their national post operators more time to prepare for full liberalisation.
In a major policy address on the EU single market, Mr McCreevy described the goal to open the postal market to competition by 2011 as a "litmus test for the single market" and a test to demonstrate member states' "commitment to reform and restructuring".
"Listening to the opposition levelled at the proposal, I can only wonder how attached many opponents really are to the single market," he said.
"In the postal sector, we see that many countries and vested interests prefer to forego the advantages of the single market by protecting the monopoly holders."
Britain and Sweden are two countries that have already opened up their postal sectors to competition, a move which Mr McCreevy said raised efficiency and innovation and provided sustainable jobs in the sector.
EU post and telecoms ministers will discuss the issue on June 7th to 9th and the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on the proposal on June 5th. Member states and the parliament will have the final say on the proposal tabled by Mr McCreevy.
