The Brief – A European postal service for the parcel age

The Commission is gearing up to deliver a proposal that would reimagine its postal systems to handle the meteoric rise in parcel deliveries.

The EU Delivery Act aims to address an outdated system that was designed for delivering letters, not packages. The proposal – which seeks to bring postal rules into a consolidated framework – will address whether traditional postal operators should bear the brunt of parcel packages, or if couriers such as Amazon and UPS should be asked to contribute to systems across the bloc.

Postal services have long been a pillar of the social system. Postal operators have had an obligation to serve entire countries – from remote villages to bustling cities. This also included delivering mail regardless of its profitability. To prop up the system, a consistent mass of letters was essential to making operations financially viable, but postal services have struggled in an era of declining printed mail.

The Delivery Act responds to this new reality….