Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it was actually our intention to let you all send your Christmas post and to wait until all the Christmas mail was delivered, after which we should have had ample time in January to discuss postal services in general. However, a majority of the House decided that we should hold the debate today, so that is what we shall have to do. When we discuss postal services, we have to speak about three things. What has surprised me slightly as rapporteur over the past few months is that we have somewhat lost sight of these three things. Firstly, we must ensure that postal services are provided at affordable prices; secondly, we must ensure that the services are of a high quality, and, thirdly, we must ensure that we are able to guarantee the availability of at least a minimum range of postal services in all parts of the European Union. This is what the people of Europe rightly expect of us. To that end, we have received a proposal from the Commission in accordance with the directive which was adopted in 1997. It is a matter of examining how much monopoly is needed to achieve these aims – especially the universal availability of services – and how much competition is possible alongside such a monopoly. I have always taken the view, as far as postal services are concerned, that there should be as much competition as possible and as much monopoly as is necessary. This, I believe, is a maxim that should be taken to heart. I very much regret that the numerous studies on postal services conducted by the Commission in recent years do not give any clear indication as to how much monopoly is required for a guaranteed universal postal service. Such an indication would have made my work a little easier and would certainly have helped Parliament too. As things stand, everyone has been able to pick and choose from this wide range of studies as he or she has seen fit. So what exactly is it all about? It is about the degree of monopoly we require. The Commission proposed that the monopoly service be restricted to letters weighing 50 grammes or less. At the committee stage, we agreed on a compromise, namely letters up to a weight of 150 grammes. The Commission proposed the full liberalisation of cross-border mail. We in the reporting committee agreed on a compromise, namely that the same weight ceiling should apply to cross-border mail and national mail. The Commission proposed that legal certainty be created in the realm of the so-called special services, which is understandable, given the problems that exist here, especially in the Directorate-General for Competition. We decided in committee to leave the question of special services as it is regulated in Directive 97/67/EC. The Commission proposed a review of the directive in 2004. Our committee proposed that this be undertaken one year earlier. We also agreed that the period of validity of this directive should remain unchanged. Back in 1997, at the time of the decisive vote on the last directive, I told Martin Bangemann, who was the Commissioner responsible at that time, that the only good thing to be said about the old directive was that it had an expiry date, that it would eventually lapse. I believe it is right to continue this practice, because it exerts pressure on the markets, and that is absolutely essential if we are to achieve what the people expect of us. As citizens of our countries, we pay for this monopoly every day with overpriced postage stamps throughout the European Union. The quality of the postal services has not improved over the past 500 years! We have to think about all of that. It is not the responsibility of postal administrations to create jobs throughout each country, but it is their responsibility to move mail from A to B. If we just concentrate on what the core business of postal administrations is and on the need to ensure that markets are opened up judiciously and gradually – not abruptly, but gradually; the Commission went for abrupt change in its proposal, but we in the committee agreed on a different approach – then it will certainly be possible to safeguard what needs to be safeguarded. I ask you to support the compromise we worked out in committee. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE