London hosted last 17 April a meeting of the CERP working group on Political Issues, co-chaired by Norway and the Netherlands.
The following stand out among the issues covered at the meeting:
- Approval of the minutes of the group's last meeting, held on 9 September 2006 in Paris;
- Norway's presentation of the current situation of work undertaken in the Universal Postal Union (UPU) on reforming the Union;
- The progress of ongoing work in the CERP project team on UPU Issues;
- Sweden's presentation on market liberalisation;
- The conclusions reached by the project team on National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs);
- Relations between CEPT/CERP, the European Commission and the UPU.
Regarding UPU reform, the debate focused on models for reorganisation at the level of the Postal Operations Council and a clearer separation of regulatory and operational functions. As for the conclusions reached by the NRA project team, it was stressed that the regulators generally do not have enough powers to act, specifically vis-à-vis non-compliance with applicable legislation. The licensing system was also deemed to be the best available tool to force the operators to supply the information that enables the regulators to monitor the market.
The next meeting of this working group will take place in the last quarter of 2007, on a date still to be determined.
