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EU vows to reveal the secrets of parcel delivery

[ December 15, 2017   //   ]

EU institutions provisionally agreed on new rules on 14 December to make cross-border parcel delivery tariffs more transparent and allow regulators to better monitor the market.

The provisional agreement by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission needs to be finally approved by the Parliament and the Council and is expected to formally enter into force at the beginning of next year and be fully applicable in 2019.

Research shows that the public cross-border prices charged by universal service providers are up to five times higher than the domestic equivalent. Prices from broadly similar originating member states over comparable distances sometimes vary significantly without obvious explanatory cost factors.

The aim is to encourage consumers to choose from a wider range of products and to buy more online.

The new regulation aims to foster competition and force parcel delivery providers to disclose prices for the services individual consumers and small businesses often use, which the Commission will publish on a website.

For deliveries subject to the universal service obligation, national regulatory authorities will assess whether tariffs for cross-border services are unreasonably high compared to the underlying cost – as they already do for postal services.

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