P.U.P. “Poczta Polska” before 2009. The necessity for change – part 1

The Directives of the European Parliament and of the Council, which discuss postal market issues, are, in short, aimed at reconciling the implementation of a gradual, controlled liberalization of the postal market with a lasting guarantee of the provision of a universal postal service. As stated, increasing competitiveness should enable the postal sector to integrate with alternative methods of communication and allow for an improvement in the quality of services offered.

It is a fact that EU Directives provide for the possibility of reserving certain services for so-called universal postal service operators, but the reserved area is constantly shrinking. Thus, until August 2003, it included correspondence items weighing up to 2000 g; until January 1, 2006 – 350 g, and currently only 50 g. Full opening of the postal market is planned for 2009, although confirmation or change of this date will take place after the European Commission conducts studies on the impact it will have on the functioning of the postal market in individual member states.

There is, therefore, some probability that this will happen later than originally planned (31.12.2006), however, taking into account the fact that some countries have already liberalized this market (Finland, Sweden, Estonia), while others plan to do so earlier (for example, Germany), this probability is approaching zero. For a public operator such as Poczta Polska, this means the necessity of meeting new challenges. In connection with this, this article is an attempt to answer the question: is Poczta Polska ready to function in the conditions of a fully liberalized market and what should it do to improve this state of preparation.

An analysis of the prices of certain services leads to the conclusion that the pursuit of Europe is going surprisingly well for us (Chart 1). In Poland, the prices of standard letters (20 g) in 2006 were higher than in: Spain (by over 72%), the Netherlands (by 28%), Great Britain (by 6%), not to mention the newly associated countries. It is poor consolation that it is more expensive in: Denmark (by 28%), Italy (by 20%), Germany and Austria (by 10%), France (by 6%), and in Belgium and Luxembourg "as much as" 4% more. The place that Poland occupies against the background of other EU members is not a reason for pride, especially when taking into account the value of gross domestic product per person (higher in the mentioned countries from 1.3 to 9.8 times than in Poland). Detailed data on this subject are included in Table 1. For this reason, the price of a standard letter is worth considering not in the context of absolute values, but relative ones. For this purpose, an indicator is usually used, representing the number of letters that a citizen employed in industry and services of a given country could send during the year for an average salary. According to data from 2004, a resident of Spain could afford 73,433 standard letters (20 g), Luxembourg 81,150, Great Britain 103,132, and a Pole only 15,575.