Press Releases

Full Liberalisation of the Postal Market Prepared by ANCOM and the Romanian Profile Industry

28.11.2012

 

The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) has made the final step toward the full liberalisation of the postal market by debating two important decisions with the representatives of the relevant industry, during the Consultative Council meeting.
These two decisions will modify the regulatory framework as follows: the capacity as a universal service provider of the Romanian Post National Company (CNPR) will be extended with one year, the reserved right of CNPR concerning the provision of certain services will be removed, and a new mechanism to compensate the possible losses registered by the provider as a result of fulfilling the universal service obligations will be established. Furthermore, the conditions on the elaboration and auditing of the separate financial statements by CNPR have been amended and so these statements are to include data necessary to determine the net cost of the provision of services within the scope of universal service.
The agreed amendments and completions to the secondary regulatory framework aim at ensuring the continuous provision of universal service until the transposition into the national primary legislation of the European legal framework in the postal sector and also enable all the providers to provide any service on the postal market, due to the removal of all exclusive rights.
Hence, after 31 December 2012, the date of expiry of the exclusive right of CNPR to provide postal services dealing with correspondence items weighing less than 50 g and costing less than RON 2, regardless of whether their delivery is accelerated or not, any postal provider will have the right to provide this type of services.
At the same time, given that the national legal framework is being currently amended so that Romania could observe the obligation to transpose the Community legislation in the field, the capacity as a universal service provider of CNPR is extended with one year, respectively until 31 December 2013, in order to further ensure the users’ right to benefit from a minimum set of postal services at a certain quality in any locality throughout Romania, by means of universal service.
Moreover, the Authority has established a new mechanism for financing the universal service provision, namely the compensation of the net cost by means of a universal service fund. The net cost of the universal service provision represents the losses registered by the universal service provider upon fulfilling the obligations deriving from this capacity. 
One of CNPR universal service obligations is to ensure in each locality in Romania at least one clearance from each access point and at least one delivery to the domicile of each natural person and to the headquarters of each legal person, every working day, but not less than 5 days a week, at the same tariffs, including in hard accessible or low density geographic areas, where the correspondence amount is low.
The net cost resulted from the provision of services within the scope of universal service will be compensated only at the request of the universal service provider, and the compensation will be financed from a universal service fund administered by ANCOM. This fund is to comprise financial contributions from certain postal providers authorised according to the general authorisation procedure or contributions from the postal end-users, obtained by charging a fee for the postal services they use. The implementation of these provisions will be later established by ANCOM, in keeping with the universal service financing needs identified as being the net cost of universal service provision which is to be compensated. 
The universal service provider will submit to the Authority a statement on the costs, revenues and capital engaged for the provision of the services within the scope of universal service, certified by an independent auditor. Furthermore, the universal service provider will have the obligation to keep separate accounts within its internal accounting system and to present distinctly the services provided within the scope of universal service and those provided outside the scope of universal service.
The liberalisation of the postal market means removing entirely the exclusive and special rights granted for the provision of postal services, including the rights currently reserved to the universal service provider. This will incentivize competition in the sector, to the benefit of the users of postal services.
 
The decision regulating the designation conditions and procedure and designating the universal service providers in the postal sector will become effective on the date it is published in the Romanian Official Journal, except for the provisions referring to the alternative mechanism for financing the universal service obligations after the expiry of the reserved right of CNPR, which are to enter into force on 1 January 2013.

The decision concerning the conditions for the elaboration and auditing of the separate financial statements by CNPR will become effective on the date it is communicated to CNPR. On the same date, the Decision of the president of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications no. 1480/EI/2005 on the conditions for elaborating and auditing the separate financial statements by the National Company Romanian Post will no longer apply.

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