Proposition 53K0203

Projet de loi portant modification des articles 2, 2/1 et 4 de la loi modifiant la loi du 17 janvier 2003 concernant les recours et le traitement des litiges à l'occasion de la loi du 17 janvier 2003 relative au statut du régulateur des secteurs des postes et télécommunications belges.

General information ¶

Submitted by

CD&V Leterme Ⅱ

Submission date

Sept. 22, 2010

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

civil procedure competition postal and telecommunications services postal service appeal

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR

Abstained from voting

Groen Vooruit Ecolo VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 18, 2010 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Two rapporteurs also requested to intervene personally. I suppose that they will directly intervene in the extension of their report.

The process of liberalization of the postal sector began in 1992. Three European directives introduced a gradual opening of the market. During the previous two legislatures, this theme has been widely discussed in the Infrastructure Committee. There was an exchange of views with the relevant ministers. Hearing was held along with a trip in March 2009 to Sweden, a country where postal liberalization is in place.

The two bills on the agenda follow the third directive, which provides for the abolition of the last postal monopoly, sendings of less than 50 g, which must be transposed by 1 January 2011. Therefore, both projects are submitted to vote today and are dealt with urgently.

Such openness cannot be achieved without being framed on the social level. All postal activities, from collection to distribution, with the exception of transport, shall be carried out by workers and not by self-employed persons.

This is a liberalization that must also be strictly regulated to combat unfair competition. It is in this context that the regulator, the IBPT, will be strengthened in order to avoid any derivative. But this liberalization must also be an advance for all citizens. Conditions will therefore be imposed on new entrants: the obligation to increase their coverage to 80% in each of the three Regions, within five years, so that a maximum number of people can have access to these services and the obligation to frequent two distributions per week after two years. These operators must be interoperable, one task can be performed by another when necessary.

There is a price guarantee. The tariffs will be imposed by the IBPT and must remain affordable for all residents. The price of the stamp will therefore remain uniform. There are no changes to the definition of universal service. To ensure full coverage of the territory and the frequency of five passes per week, bpost will be designated as universal service provider until the end of 2018.

Finally, these bills also cover the modernization of the traditional recommended sending. A legal framework is created to assimilate the traditional recommended letter to an electronic sending from a certified platform.

During the general discussion, each political group, while emphasizing the importance of meeting European requirements, expressed its sensitivities.

For the N-VA, the objectives of liberalization, namely the improvement of services provided, the reduction of consumer prices and the reduction of the role of public authorities, will not be achieved due to the monopoly of universal service granted to bpost until 2018 and the conditions of access which it considers too restrictive at the market level.

The Vlaams Belang also believes that the text does not guarantee the full liberalization of the market.

The PS, on the other hand, acknowledges that the liberalization of the postal market has been introduced progressively, even though it has never been a supporter. He hopes that Parliament can evaluate the liberalization process. This proposal, relayed by the sp.a, was the subject of an amendment unanimously accepted.

For the MR – this comment was also expressed by the CD&V – the legal framework corresponds to the directive. The main challenge of the sector, as the Swedish case teaches, is not so much liberalization but the competition of other means of communication such as SMS and electronic communications.

I must also relay the concerns of our colleague Kattrin Jadin regarding the coverage and the risk of ⁇ ining a monopoly on the territory of the German-speaking Community.

CD&V has once again emphasized the importance of having a strong regulator for the postal sector.

For the Ecolo-Groen!, the liberalization results in negative effects such as the deterioration of working conditions and the reduction of the number of post offices. It offers 100% market coverage and also addresses the subject of sanctions.

In addition, the sp.a considers that the liberalization of the postal sector is a mistake, given the risks of price increases for consumers. It also emphasizes the risk of creating poor jobs. Finally, it indicates that it was not necessary to incorporate the issue of electronic recommended sending into the bill.

While supporting the text, the CDH asks whether the ordinary customer can benefit from liberalization and does not share the optimism of the minister.

Finally, for Open Vld and the chairwoman of the commission, the text constitutes a good balance between the conditions of market liberalization, the maintenance of the status of the worker and the maintenance of universal service. For her, the high cost of wages in Belgium risks deterring new entrants.

In his responses, the Minister specified that the bills under consideration were compromised to allow both liberalization with the end of the bpost monopoly guaranteeing universal service and strengthening the role of the IBPT. It is the KPMG study that resulted in a proposal for an 80 percent coverage rate to avoid market depletion. Let’s not forget that this is a specific sector with a high labor coefficient and a significant part of the turnover comes from a small number of customers!

He also addressed the various royal decrees that still need to be taken to complete the arrangement and in particular the unfair burden of universal service. It is established that a loss exceeding 3% of the turnover will result in an unfair burden. He also recalled the Swedish example, in which customer satisfaction increased with Post Points and the stamp price decreased in eight years.

The legislative services and the additional opinion of the State Council have highlighted certain legal imperfections. Given that there are two legal texts, all these imperfections have been corrected by numerous technical amendments.

As regards the discussion on the amendments, some of which were of a technical nature, while others gave rise to a substantial debate, I will give the floor to my co-rapporteur, Mr. and Maertens.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, I had agreed with Mrs. De Bue that she would explain the general part and that I would limit myself to the article-based discussion. I have heard that she has already explained something.

Many amendments have been submitted to this bill. The majority of them are linguistic or legal-technical improvements to the law. These amendments were submitted by the majority parties CD&V and Open Vld. What also stands out is that a number of deadlines imposed on the government in the original bill, such as a deadline for issuing royal decrees, are postponed by half a year or a year. These are, for example, the KB which will determine the calculation method for the net cost of universal service and the amendments to the Act of 9 July 2001 on certain aspects of electronic signature.

I will briefly refer to a number of remarkable amendments that have been put forward. I will begin with two amendments submitted by our group, namely, on the designation of the next provider of the universal service after the transitional period in which De Post is responsible for that universal service, and, on Article 28, on the language use of the licensed providers of postal services. I will later, in my intervention on behalf of our group, go deeper into this.

Mr. Balcaen of the Ecolo-Green group! Submitted a striking amendment aiming to further strengthen the requirements imposed on private postal service providers and aimed to strengthen and strengthen the territorial coverage obligation, which must be 80 % in each of the three regions after five years, to 100 %. That amendment failed, after the Minister’s explanation, in which he explained that a full coverage obligation would be an unnecessary duplicate of the universal service.

Mr. Veys van Vlaams Belang wanted to impose the coverage obligation in at least two regions instead of three, as is now mandatory. He was also not followed by the committee.

Ms. De Bue had a little more luck with her amendment no. 46, in which it clarified that postal service providers should be able to use temporary labour. In other words, temporary workers are now also allowed for those postal service providers, as the amendment of Mrs. De Bue was adopted with 15 votes in favour and 1 abstinence.

Finally, there is the important aspect that Ms. De Bue just mentioned. One last amendment that I would like to draw special attention to is the evaluation of the draft law that is ahead. Both the representatives of sp.a and of the N-VA submitted an amendment to the committee for approval. At the request of several members, we put together the different texts and so we were able to submit a joint amendment. This amendment came – the witnesses of the committee meeting will be able to confirm it – after some party-political diplomacy and was signed by virtually all the factions present. It is very important. I will return to summer later.

The bill was eventually adopted by the committee with 13 votes for and 3 abstentions, so it can be submitted here for approval.

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is useful to proceed immediately with my own argument.

and yes.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will say a few words about this bill in general and about its appreciation by our N-VA group.

“The Post becomes bpost, ready for tomorrow.” You have probably heard this message several times in the last few weeks on the radio and seen it on television. Bpost confirmed this message again yesterday during a press conference. “Bpost will confidently meet the liberalization of the postal market on 1 January next year,” it says. “Bpost is ready to respond to competitors. Due to the changes carried out in recent years, the company has prepared itself well for the great revolution. The financial balance has been restored, the quality has improved sharply and the work processes are running more efficiently,” says bpost.

I would like to confirm on behalf of the N-VA group that the latter is entirely correct. The Post, now bpost, has undergone a thorough reform in recent years and has grown into a modern state-owned company.

It is Johnny Thijs, CEO of the company since 2002, who has played an undeniable, great and important role in it. He made bpost more efficient with, among other things, a better organization of the post rounds, the closure of losing post offices and the opening of the, as far as I am concerned, very customer-friendly – because broader opening hours – post points.

At the same time, he appears to be able to regularly smoke a social peace pipe with the trade unions in his office in the face of the storm, compared with some other government companies in our country. The achievements of Johnny Thijs and his team over the past eight years are therefore ⁇ not to be underestimated.

Johnny Thijs is not only a good manager, but also an excellent lobbyist. His lobbying not only gave him the title of courtyard supplier, as you heard yesterday, but he also managed to get in the government parties to the extent that they wrote the law which is presented here today for approval and which must introduce the liberalization of the postal services in our country from 1 January 2011, almost entirely tailored to his company.

This law goes a long way when it comes to safeguarding the market position of bpost. It imposes so high conditions and rules on competition that it is deterred in advance. If that competition has not yet been deterred, it will ⁇ find from 1 January 2011 that the new rules and conditions are so strict that private postal service providers will not be able to attract sufficient customers and volumes to operate profitably and economically responsibly.

Until then the full “liberalization” of the market of postal mail, although the liberal minister Van Quickenborne after the decision in the Council of Ministers made known in the press that new postal companies could enter the competition under flexible conditions. Flexible conditions, it is a broad concept.

I will provide a brief overview of those licensing conditions for collecting, sorting, transporting and distributing mail. The first condition is that the tariffs must be uniform, regardless of the address of the destination. After two years, there must be a postal service at least twice a week. After five years, that private postal service provider must serve 80 % of the addresses in each of the three regions. Last but ⁇ not less important criterion: the private provider must compulsoryly engage employees to perform its services. Cooperation with independent subcontractors is strictly prohibited by this law.

Really flexible can be called the licensing criteria challenging, Mr. Minister. Especially this last condition raises a lot of questions in our group. In our view, it will go quite far if the government imposes restrictions on the private sector regarding the employment of employees. I note that your party’s attitude about this may change during the course of decision-making. During the 2008 exchange of views in the committee, your colleague at the time, Mr De Padt, pleaded convinced that working with self-employed persons should possibly continue. Not only are the licensing conditions flexible, but also some liberal principles.

I fully understand that the proposers of this bill do not want to allow for a false autonomy in the postal market. This abuse is entirely right. Fake independence should be tackled strictly. It is only a question of whether you should solve this at the sectoral level by entering a ban in the law on the postal market. It seems to me that we are much better at dealing with false self-employment through labour law and through the raising of the social inspection. A specific ban on working with self-employed persons in the postal market seems to me somewhat superfluous and not really in place. It is a serious limitation of free entrepreneurship.

During the discussion in the committee, on behalf of our N-VA group, I asked some concrete questions about the bill that is presented here for approval. It was, for example, about a possible ceiling for state intervention to the universal service provider, about the possible division of the universal services at the level of tasks – picking up, sorting, transporting and distributing mail. I have asked a number of concrete questions regarding the choice of direct state aid instead of a compensation fund or the contribution that private postal service providers must pay to finance the Ombudsman’s services.

Mr. Minister, on some questions, due to the Government, there was an adequate and plausible answer. I also confirmed this in the committee and thanked you for it. On some questions, however, the answer did not satisfy. I would like to highlight two important elements here this afternoon.

First, the bill stipulates that the government with the KB determines the open mechanism that the BIPT will follow in the designation of the universal service provider after that transitional period. The chosen term open mechanism seems to us too non-binding. That is why we submitted an amendment. We want the assurance that every private enterprise with the same weapons as bpost starts and can compete under the orders of a universal service provider, and that with a strict procedure.

Second, we have paid a lot of attention to compliance with language legislation. Compliance with the language legislation is now not included as a licensing condition in the free mail segment. After all, we want to guarantee that a destination, the recipient, gets his post in his language. In Bütgenbach, Karl-Heinz must get his job from a postman who speaks his language, namely German. In Geldenaken, it should be possible for Marie-Claire in French, and in Halle, Steven can expect a postman at his door that can help him in Dutch and who does not only know French or any other language. I think this is clear, that these are essential basic rules in our democracy. These are the essential and basic rules of language play in our country. With an amendment, we wanted to avoid a possible violation of those basic rules in this country, with the aim of protecting the recipient of postal documents. After all, it is not the destination that chooses the mail, but the sender-payer.

Our amendment was also intended to protect bpost from a competitive disadvantage. In fact, if that is not included in the licensing conditions for private enterprises, it means that private competitors under this law do not have to follow the language legislation and bpost does. Unfortunately, we did not find a majority in the committee for our proposal.

Fortunately, we found support in the committee for our explicit request to review this law thoroughly at least within two years.

We want, once the law is truly in full force, to seriously and on the basis of objective data to examine whether the possible pain points that we have identified during the discussion in the committee have become reality and whether the law as such should be revised.

I am pleased that almost all parties supported our amendment, which we submitted together with the other parties. We expect a good evaluation exercise in the competent committee in two years.

I come to my final conclusion. It may be clear to you that for us the question remains whether the current bill will guarantee fair competition in the postal market. The actual monopoly of bpost remains in place for a while, and it is only a question of whether that was precisely the intention of Europe in the Postal Directive.

We do not advocate a blind liberalization, but this bill is, in my opinion, more a false liberalization than a real liberalization of the internal postal market.

Colleagues of the committee, since you have all been prepared and here in the future everyone would be prepared to submit this law to a thorough report from the government and a comprehensive evaluation no later than in two years, we are prepared to temporarily delay this bill.

Mr. Maertens, I congratulate you on your maiden speech. (Applause of Applause)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the bill on the liberalization of the postal sector came after thorough discussions with the sector.

Mr. Minister, several years have passed. You have been working on your design for three years. The original directive of the European Parliament is more than ten years old.

The result that is on the table is what we can call a good, Belgian compromise. It meets the European requirements for a liberalized market. It also gives the necessary attention to the problem of our complex, Belgian territory.

In the committee, comparisons were made with other sectors where liberalization was carried out, such as the telecommunications sector. I also pointed out that liberalization cannot be generalized there. After all, the post has a special character due to the labor intensity of its services. Bpost is a very large company. Nearly 40,000 employees in our country work at bpost.

Why is liberalization needed? It is necessary because in Europe we must be able to play on the field. By 1 January 2011, there must also be a legal framework for the conditions under which other beggars could enter the market.

There are different players on the field. First, there is the consumer. What is in the present draft for the consumer? For the consumer there is a better service, a greater choice and a stricter control of the price of the stamp. The price of some transactions, such as registered shipments, will fall. That is not insignificant. While a registered shipment now costs more than 5 euros, it will cost 50 cents in the future.

For companies there is the very important advantage of sharper prices. There will be a 50% reduction on current prices. There will be more choice and flexibility. There will also be renewed services. There will no longer be absurd ways to send registered shipments. The present draft also means a very large improvement in the administrative burden. After all, one of the demands of our companies is the reduction of the inconvenience and it is addressed.

The post has undergone some restructuring in recent years and has grown towards liberalization. Bpost stands for more than a new name. Bpost is the Post of the past, which has undergone a whole evolution.

What is important? It is important that the universal service will remain free and ⁇ until the end of 2018.

Also important is the home handling of the post five times a day, the emptying and processing of the red mailboxes and the crew of the sales points. All this was included in the law to safeguard the service.

As for employees, it is said here that too little space was reserved for self-employed activities, for entrepreneurs. That is not true. There is still an independent activity for transportation. As for the rest of the services, it is true that one can only work in an employee status. I think this gives a lot of certainty to the many people who now work at bpost. The employee statute guarantees for them a certain security.

The new bpost will have to invest in three regions. A growth path will be needed. New players on the market have a number of conditions, namely tariff conditions and coverage conditions. Everything was provided in the law. I will save you the articles because it was actually a very technical design.

The function of the regulator, the BIPT, as a stick behind the door, was strengthened. In addition, the regulator will play a more important role, in the sense that from 2012 an ex ante arrangement can be made for the user tariffs. In the meantime, a pricecap scheme applies. This is a very important compromise for consumers.

The sending of the electronic signature was developed. This is a very important step in our informed world. The emailed version of a registered letter. It is done to have to walk to the post between certain hours. Who can bring it up? It is done with bringing the statutes and giving 35 euros per year to get someone else to pick up your registered shipments. It will be much cheaper than the paper brother of the registered letter. Guarantees regarding destination and sender are built-in. It was calculated and said in the committee that companies and consumers would save up to 80 million euros per year. That is an important amount.

This was, as I said, a technical project. As chairman of the Infrastructure Committee, I am pleased that this is the first major draft that we have been able to lead through the committee.

We took our time. I also thank all members who have actively participated. I think there is a lot of work done in the committee, but also behind the scenes.

I also think it is important that we have been approved in times when there is actually no government and there is actually no majority. The cooperation of every member of the Commission was necessary, because, as we have said, the majority of yesterday is not the majority of today, and probably not the majority of tomorrow. However, all this has been approved. I thank you all for your cooperation.

Our group will therefore fully support this.

Thank you, Mrs. Chairman of the Committee.

With the adoption of the text submitted to us today, a final touch is placed on the process of liberalization of the postal sector.

So this is not an anodin text, far from that, because it will condition the future of the sector for the coming decades. Several essential questions arise. What is the future for postal services offered to citizens? What is the future of universal service? What is the future for the working conditions in the sector?

The full liberalization of the sector will take effect on 1 January next year. It was therefore essential, and many actors, including trade union organizations, recalled it, that a text frames this liberalization, at the risk of seeing the entry of new operators completely dismantle the sector.

We should accomplish this in extremis, given that royal orders still have to be taken.

That said, if we are now at the end of the race, the process has already produced effects. It is well in the light of the liberalization of the sector that we must analyze the last years of rationalization in La Poste, which became bpost: modernization of the sorting, application of Georoute with its effects on the working conditions of the factors, disappearance of the shops in the neighborhoods and villages and replaced by Post Points, creation of a precarious status of auxiliary factor, bpost thereby consecrating the reign of the "small boulots" part-time and poorly paid.

Of course, bpost must modernize and take into account the significant decrease, for many years, in the number of letters to be processed, as postal mail is increasingly competing with the new possibilities of information technology.

The price to be paid is heavy, especially in terms of employment, and it is not over if one must believe the statements of Mr. Thijs this morning in the press about the need to still work on the wage mass.

I will return to the text that will be voted today. I think it would be dishonest, Mr. Minister, to say that the bill does not seek to frame the possible deviations of the postal sector by imposing a series of conditions on new entrants: obligation of frequency of distribution, obligation of coverage to 80% of the territory, obligation to work with employees and not self-employed.

The text provides for a series of efforts, but will this regulation be sufficient to prevent new entrants from focusing on profitable market segments, thus capturing a portion of the products that so far financed the less profitable universal service? That is the whole question. This is the scratch that literature mentions.

For my part, I note that bpost had worked on scenarios of coverage obligation at 100% of the territory and three distribution per week imposed for new entrants. The government’s project is therefore below the scenarios that had been studied in particular by KPMG.

Is the scenario of a 100% coverage obligation for which we have submitted amendments unreasonable? and no. You have yourself, Mr. Minister, submitted a document to the committee according to which, in some countries, this 100% coverage can be achieved by some alternative operators. This is especially the case in the Netherlands, located not far from home.

In fact, the obligations as provided in the government project are a bit the open door to what is called end-to-end operators that target industrial and non-urgent mail, distributed two to three times a week. However, it is precisely this type of market that so far contributed largely to bpost’s turnover and, thereby, to the financing of the universal service.

As the rapporteurs mentioned, we wanted to strengthen the entry conditions for new operators. It is green! has submitted an amendment aimed at raising to 100% the coverage to be secured after five years with a minimum of three distribution per week. We are submitting this amendment again to the plenary session because we believe that there are several key issues behind this issue. I have two that I have already mentioned. First, there is the financing of the universal service. It is true that instead of making all private operators contribute to financing, the government has chosen public financing of the universal service. It can be understood, the financing of the universal service in the telecommunications sector which is provided by the operators – you mentioned it in the commission, Mr. Minister – is not a success both in its application and at the level of the legal certainty surrounding the device.

In addition, we should soon begin a debate on the subject in committees, in particular in the light of the recent consultation of the telecommunications sector, conducted by the IBPT. New paths are worth exploring.

That said, with the scheme adopted, state financing of universal service could become increasingly heavy to bear, over time. This is a real risk that we would like to emphasize.

The second issue is that of geographical coverage, which is also a matter of territorial planning and mobility. I recalled in a committee the position of the Union of Cities and Municipalities of Wallonia: it fears for the maintenance of the postal service in the more rural regions. This is also an important element.

Finally, the social conditions. The bill provides for a mandatory use of wage labour. This constraint is important – and we welcome it – but will it prevent social dumping? Will we not be obliged, like the German Parliament in 2007, to legislate one day on the minimum wage in the postal sector?

In any case, in order to ensure the best working conditions in the sector, we remain in favor, Mrs. Minister, of the creation of a parity commission for the postal sector. We need to move forward quickly in this area.

If we should emphasize the progress of the text in the framework of liberalization, mortgages remain numerous. The amendment that we co-signed, which will allow an evaluation of the postal sector liberalization policy within two years of the entry into force of the text, is therefore fundamental.

In conclusion, we examined the text with lucidity. Clearness, because we are in a European context that we know leaves little room for manoeuvre. It was therefore essential that a text came to regulate liberalization. But this liberalization can also be poorly regulated. This can correspond to social disasters, deterioration of universal service and increased desertification of rural areas.

It is because we are not convinced, Mr. Minister, that the text answers all these questions that we will not vote in favour of this text.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, we will not approve the present bill, not so much because we are against the liberalization of the postal market, but because we have a number of fundamental arguments to refuse to approve the draft.

First and foremost, there is our historical responsibility to the current Belgian bpost. In the past year, in the run-up to market liberalization, we have already been able to establish that a number of nefaste consequences were observable within the Belgian Post. For example, I refer to the system of the number of strikes that took place. I think you can no longer count them, the number that took place this year in the various post offices. The post offices also take into account a loss between 10 % and 30 %. They are in the middle, at 20%. This will have a number of consequences. When I asked you about this in the committee, you stayed on the plane and played the ball to your colleague, Minister Vervotte, for convenience. We did not have to question you about the consequences of liberalization, but Mrs. Vervotte.

On the other hand, there is also the problem of absenteism in the staff of the post. That is dramatically high, around 8% to 9%. That number is marked. Not that those people are quite easily sick, but the element of work pressure is, for example, much too high. One is trying to capture that with the system of aid mail buds in a kind of statute. One could then set up a little bit about the restriction that one wants to introduce in terms of working with self-employed persons, but the status of help postman is not much better.

The quality of service has also been reduced in recent years. I refer to the introduction of the postal points, to the opening hours, to how one can still reach his postal office by phone, to for example how the pensions are paid out today. The service sector has declined considerably.

Despite this decline in the classical postal volumes – in 2009 minus 4 percent – De Post still managed to realize an operational profit of 240 million euros in 2009. During his press conference yesterday, Mr Thijs stated that the principle of no naked dismissals is upheld as long as it is somewhat possible. This is already a little given. One should read it as “prepare, there will be dismissals.” In this, the government must play its role and must assume its historical responsibility to the Post.

In connection with the discussion itself, I would like to first praise Chairman De Block for the way this bill has been discussed in the committee. It gives all parties the opportunity to fully conduct the debate. I also have words of praise for the people who prepared the report, Mrs. De Bue and Mr. Maertens. It is a correct representation and all parties can recognize themselves in this report.

Mr. Minister, a second point of criticism is the timing, the time frame within which we received this bill for discussion. There was an exchange of views in 2008. Then there was a trip to Sweden with a few parliamentarians. During the course of October of this year, you suddenly got born of a bill. Suddenly that bill must come out, not three months before that market must be free, suddenly it is there and the discussion in the committee begins. This happens when there is a high urgency, so suddenly everything must go much faster. However, there was an agreement in your own Council of Ministers already at the end of 2009. Why did you wait so long? I think you could have come to the committee much faster with a concrete bill.

One of the consequences of your hold-de-bolder is that there have been various comments from the State Council and also subsequently from the Chamber’s legal service. There are many elements present that indicate that one has taken action in a hurry.

We, of course, have been lucky in the committee to have a number of visionary Chamber members. I refer to Ms. Somers and the unfortunately absent Mr. Van den Bergh who were able to draft amendments on the basis of a non-existent report from the Chamber’s Legal Service. The Chamber’s legal service provided this to the chairman of the committee but apparently the members of the Chamber already knew what was in it and who were able to draw up amendments on the basis of that report.

Well, they deserve a plum for so much vision.

Everything, of course, has a purpose. Why did you wait so long to get the draft to the committee? The longer one waits, the less time potential players have to prepare. Only today will we know what the conditions are, because amendments can still be approved. Only tomorrow, or after publication in the Official Gazette, will one know what the exact conditions are.

So, of course, it is easy to say on 1 January: we meet all formal conditions; liberalization is there. In the end, you know yourself that no private player is able to finish a project on January 1.

My third point of criticism is whether it is a real liberalization. I was hoping for a minister, who is not only mercury, quickly in timing, but who also boasts of his liberal principles and who would indeed fulfill Europe’s desire for the liberalization of the postal market. However, I note that in the present bill there are many restrictions, for example in terms of time. The deadlines range from 6 months to even 1 year, before the market is fully opened.

There are other restrictive elements, for example, in the area of the arrangement. The condition will be that in all three regions the post will be requested. There are also restrictions in terms of tariffs. There is an obligation to work with uniform rates. In addition, the coverage rate must be 80 % in each of the 3 regions. I can’t call it very liberal. In short, Mr. Minister, in terms of your liberal principles, you perform undermeasurably.

Colleagues, I am not alone with my criticism of the strict conditions. This criticism is also expressed by the sector of self-employed organisations that may wish to participate, both with regard to the distribution and the extent of coverage and the principle of being allowed to work with self-employed persons. The principle that one can work with self-employed persons is permitted abroad. In this country you obviously have no ears for it.

In any case, they are considering filing a complaint with Europe. We will see what it brings. Speaking of complaints in Europe, the European Commission is still undergoing an investigation into the support of the Belgian government to bpost. However, I hear that bpost has still not charged a commission in the event that the company is convicted if Europe decides that the aid was unjust.

This is not a sign of good governance.

With regard to the coverage obligation, I have a very important comment. I would like to ask my colleagues to relate to the political reality, to the social reality. By imposing an obligation of 80 % in each of the three regions, it creates the obligation that it must be Belgian organisations. Belgium will still be saved thanks to the post.

In reality, most postal flows take place between Brussels and Flanders and vice versa, and between Brussels and Wallonia and vice versa. Unfortunately, except between Elio Di Rupo and Bart De Wever, there is very little letter exchange between Flanders and Wallonia.

A second point of criticism concerns the role of bpost in supporting the distribution of newspapers and magazines. It is also expected that they will be allowed to work below the price. There will be additional support from the government. In the past, criticism has also been expressed from the market of the sale of newspapers and magazines, which clearly speak of competition distortion. Also here, Mr. Minister, where are your principles?

Another important aspect that has already been cited here by the colleagues of N-VA is that of the language legislation. We also note that in the current bill there is absolutely no mention of the language legislation to which the Belgian Post must still comply. This is no longer an objection to you. Nevertheless, I consider it very important that all players who could offer themselves on the market from 1 January 2011 must still respect at least the language.

In the committee you said that those potential players would use common sense. Unfortunately, to my disappointment, I must conclude that many commercial firms operating in Flanders and Brussels do not use this common sense at all to this day. Please go to the Flemish border, where French is already very manifestly present. There is no room for this common sense.

These are the reasons why I submitted two amendments on behalf of my group. In an amendment, we provide the option to limit itself to at least two regions with regard to the level of coverage within those three regions. I ⁇ do not advocate that the post should be stopped tomorrow between Flanders and Wallonia, but I think that one should leave the choice to the growth of a potential partner in Flanders and Wallonia.

Honour is worthy, it is N-VA who – quite rightly – proposed that in the committee. To my surprise, there are no N-VA amendments on the banks here today to defend the very important principle of respect for language legislation.

That is why I took the initiative myself. In our second amendment, we reiterate this plea to apply the language legislation.

Finally, we will unfortunately not approve Mr Balcaen’s Ecolo amendment. It is about the plea for the 100% coverage rate. In the draft law, this role is provided for bpost. The other players can perfectly satisfy that 100%, but it makes no sense to want to impose the same role on all players.

The same applies to the two amendments of the colleagues of sp.a. We will also oppose this, as in the committee meeting.

Mr. Veys, thank you, and congratulations for your first presentation in the plenary session.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Ministers, we are delighted to finally see these two bills that aim to complete the liberalization of the postal sector. It is crucial to transpose this Directive by 31 December 2010. Otherwise, the competition will be open without any conditions and without a minimum service guarantee for customers because this is indeed what is most important: the maintenance of the provision of a universal postal service in a sustainable way and guaranteeing its financing.

The legal obligations guarantee the distribution of mail throughout the territory five times a week and guarantee that the universal service provider has at least one deposit and withdrawal point of mail that could not be distributed by merged municipality. That is why we are pleased to see these guarantees appear for our fellow citizens who are entitled to these services, no matter where, even the most remote, where they live. The government’s choice to designate bpost as a universal service provider from 2011 for an initial eight-year period seems in fact the most reasonable way to ensure the proper performance of this service.

This designation also provides bpost with a significant source of income that will allow it to maintain the activity of its staff. This liberalization of the sector should not be synonymous with job losses. The liberalization of the postal sector can only be achieved through human and decent social conditions for all workers in the sector. It is crucial to continue to fight for human management of the bpost situation in an increasingly open postal market. Therefore, we will be ⁇ attentive to future decisions on the precise conditions and procedures for the designation of future universal service operators through an open mechanism and in compliance with the principles of objectivity, transparency and non-discrimination.

But also the compliance with the conditions imposed on the new postal operators, in particular in terms of employment to ensure compliance with the conditions of employees and temporary workers. Because if, since yesterday, Johnny Thijs is recognized as a patented supplier by the Court of Belgium, he ⁇ owes it to his rigour, his skills, his management and, above all, the efforts made by his staff.

I hope that the result of this vote will confirm the advertisement you hear on our waves right now: “The Post becomes bpost and is ready for tomorrow!”

Congratulations to Mr. Bastin for his first speech. (The Applause )

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the text that we are going to vote today is the conclusion of a long process of opening up the postal market, started almost 20 years ago, which was realised by a first European directive since 1996.

The market was then gradually opened to competition, forcing historical postal operators to revise their organization, their working methods, their customer relationship. We have gradually moved from a sector, in fact a state monopoly, to a completely open postal market from 1 January, where the reserved domains will have disappeared.

I would like to remind you of the importance of the postal sector for our economy. It represents several tens of thousands of workers in our country alone, of the order of millions in the whole European Union. In addition, many companies, organizations and citizens use postal mail on a daily basis.

However, it is important to be aware of the fact that the biggest competitor of postal operators, whether historical or more recent, is technology: electronic communications which occupy an increasing share in the media.

Think for example of faxes that have for some time replaced part of the mail, emails that we all use throughout the day, SMS, instant messages on social networks and I pass. The postal sector is under tremendous pressure from these new communication channels, resulting in an increasingly narrowing market. In some countries, the decline in the volume of postal mail exceeds 10% per year. In our country, it can vary from 1% to 4% depending on the years.

As already mentioned, this opening in several successive stages has resulted in a fundamental change in the historical operators, as far as we are concerned with La Poste or more precisely bpost, the new name of the company.

It’s been more than ten years now that bpost started its transformation. This requires considerable efforts from the staff. Let’s just think of the efforts made within the framework of Georoute or the reorganization of office distribution networks, to name only two examples.

The head of bpost also indicated yesterday that the company is preparing to meet two major challenges, of course the arrival of new players on the market, but also the evolution of new technologies that drive the public to use more and more digital routes. by Mr. Thijs said that if we do nothing, we risk losing 400 million euros due to this competition.

The bill, which we approved in the Infrastructure Committee with a number of amendments, provides for certain barriers in such a way that competition is as effective as possible. The bpost undertaking will see the cost of its universal service obligations compensated by the state in such a way that the undertaking is not disadvantaged in relation to its competitors. Each new operator will have geographical coverage obligations in each of the three Regions of the country to avoid deflation that would consist of serving only the big customers of interest and leaving the small customers less profitable to the universal service provider, bpost. The tariffs must be transparent and non-discriminatory. Another measure was envisaged to avoid competition that could have led to a certain social dumping, to combat counterfeit independent workers who are active in certain areas of the postal sector.

The project you will have to approve has prohibited the use of self-employed workers for lifting, sorting and distribution tasks. We could have questioned this measure. It is true that the fight against false independent workers was considered a priority and it was inspired by the Swedish example in this matter.

We also wanted to clarify the text by means of an amendment allowing the use of intermediaries which are absolutely indispensable to cope with significant fluctuations in the volume of mail to be handled, for example during the holiday period.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that it is not enough to vote on texts, however good they seem to us: yet they must be well applied. Several royal orders – such as the one on essential requirements – still need to be taken for a fully effective transposition of the directive. It should be avoided that Belgium is taken in the absence of transposition.

We also demand that the regulator has the means to control compliance by the various actors, whether in terms of geographical coverage, frequency, pricing and compliance with social rules, identification of staff and shipments or complaint handling. It will also be necessary to provide for the personnel reinforcement that these new tasks require.

I would like to remind you that we support the proposal made by our colleagues that the consequences of the opening of the postal market should be assessed within two years of its entry into force and involve adjustments of the legislation if necessary.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the text presented to us today is a good compromise and I propose you to approve it so that all measures can be taken in time to perfectly frame the postal market, which must be fully open from 1 January next year, that is, in about six weeks.

First of all, I would like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Infrastructure. I must always be on a good page with her, but we have indeed been given time in the committee to debate this matter properly. Given the high urgency of the treatment, I found it very good that we were given the opportunity to differ fundamentally. This is the essence of a Parliament, between the majority and the opposition. The President gave us that space. I would also like to thank the rapporteurs for their report.

It is true that what we are discussing today is actually the transposition of a European directive. This therefore actually means that the framework is fixed and that there are still a number of rules to be determined by the referee. As in football, the referee is assisted by two border judges and now also by a fourth referee. In this case, the same thing happened.

The arbitrator in the liberalization of the postal market was Minister Van Quickenborne, assisted by a number of other ministers who assisted in determining the rules of the game. This was important because during the stage of more than two years preceding this legislation in the discussion of policy notes in the Infrastructure Committee, we sometimes felt Minister Vervotte as Minister of Public Companies on De Post and Mrs Milquet on working conditions. Therefore, of course, sometimes we heard something different from one border judge than from the arbitrator. Sometimes I felt on a football field where a border judge held a flag while the referee continued to play. Sometimes it was difficult to conduct the debate.

However, I am delighted today that the text we received at the last discussion was an improvement compared to the draft texts we were allowed to receive at the beginning as an opposition with a good wind. We have seen some improvements.

Basically, and I repeat what I have stated in the committee, I continue to ask myself questions about the liberalization trends that come from the European Commission to the different Member States. I myself am not convinced of the added value for some sectors of some liberalization legislation.

During the committee meeting, I have those who held the pen in the liberalization of the postal market, compared with the free market ayatollahs. I immediately added that my comparison was exaggerated. Nevertheless, I think a blind liberalization can ⁇ do nothing good.

Colleagues, I do not need to hide here that I do not ideologically believe in the invisible hand of the free market.

These were my philosophical thoughts. I immediately add that I am not the man to defend the old dirigist plan economy. However, I am the advocate of modern, transparent public companies that provide good services to citizens. In order to be able to provide a good service, a balance is needed so that the received income can cover the non-profitable expenses. That is, in a short definition, the essence of a public company.

I look at Britain and take the example of railways. With the liberalization of the railways there, the best lines were privatized. These lines came into the hands of private companies. The other lines came into the hands of the government and they became losing. At some point, the losing lines and trains were deleted. The result was that the users of those lines could walk on foot or had to draw their plan. The same happened with the Royal Mail. Also there followed from liberalization a sort of cherry picking.

Therefore, it is incredibly important that the implementation of the liberalization legislation comes with rules of play, a level playing field. For our party, there must be a strong social level playing field, so that the blind liberalization is set boundaries. I have read that some companies will file a complaint on 2 January 2011 against the measures under the social level playing field. That is at their expense. A social level playing field is very important.

In the vote on the bill, we abstained in the committee. We will do it again today. Indeed, the legislation in question still contains a large number of references to royal enforcement orders. There are a number of questions and uncertainties that we did not see from the opposition banks at the time of the negotiations on the current legislation. Therefore, we will remember again.

I will briefly refer to a few elements. One is the geographical coverage. Other colleagues have already mentioned this here. On the one hand, we rightly give the historical operator, bpost, the obligation to offer post five times a week. On the other hand, private competitors must offer post twice a week after two years. In a number of interviews I have read that bpost also asks how much it should come to the door five times a week in the future. Bpost also asks whether this will be feasible. I hope, because otherwise it would mean a downturn. If this question is already asked today, it indicates that the obligation of twice a week is likely to provide an unlawful competitive advantage to private competitors.

As regards the coverage level, the legislation provides: a gradual increase from 10 % geographical coverage per region in the first year to 80 % after two years. Some groups have submitted amendments to reach 100%. We will vote in favour of these amendments. I am asking about this 80% amendment. That amendment we had submitted in the committee and we have submitted it again today. If a company decides to be taken over by another capital provider after two years, will the counter of that company then again be zero, so that the obligation of geographical coverage no longer applies? Our amendment states a percentage of capital provision.

I come to the organization of the postal events. A table I received from bpost shows that approximately 85% of sales are generated by less than 1% of customers. This means that a thousand companies account for the vast majority of the postal traffic. Given these numbers, it is obvious that the competition will be carried out with those thousand customers, because they are the most interesting to drive competition. Those companies are likely to benefit from liberalization. They will get a better price. But when at the end of the journey the balance sheet needs to be balanced again, that means that the competitive advantage and the new price for the big customers, will have to be paid by individuals, self-employed, SMEs, municipal governments and the like. They will have to pay the bill for what others get.

I come to the social level playing field. I acknowledge that in the bill several attempts have been made to introduce a number of protective mechanisms. This is important because 70 % of the total costs of the postal companies are wage costs. When the wage costs are 70% of the total costs, then a blind can see that there will be competition on it, because it will be a percentage to be reduced. The competition will therefore be carried out on wage costs, in fact “on the clock of the ordinary factor”.

I must note that even the historical operator has already launched a movement several years ago to prepare itself competitively, including by pushing forward a new type of wage and working conditions.

In the committee last year there was a discussion on the status of the district post officers who had to work at 8.43 euros gross per hour. Following trade union action, this plan was withdrawn. We now have help post boards that are in a slightly better, but as far as I am concerned, still precarious status. Those salary and working conditions should be improved by bpost through trade union negotiations, but they will also become an important element in the talks with the new players.

I then come to the question of which parity committee that new players will belong. In the previous legislature I asked questions to the Minister of Labour and she answered me that this would fall under the Committee 100. For me this is still unclear. I hope that this can still be clarified.

Regarding the jobs, we read this morning in a newspaper interview that the CEO of the post announces that 1,000 people will leave the company each year. This is not about naked dismissals, but it does mean that employment has fallen from just over 40 000 to less than 33 000 between 2003 and now. In fact, there is a huge net job loss in this sector.

In the interview, it was stated that this is not only due to liberalization, but also to a decline in postal volumes. Love letters are no longer written. Today, it is asked by SMS, Twitter or mail. This will, of course, have an impact on the volume of the post, but there is no doubt that the post is facing huge challenges. We are not convinced that liberalization in this area can provide added value.

As regards the articles in connection with electronic transmission. We have said that this offers new possibilities. At the time of the discussion of the articles of that bill, however, it was still unclear for us how this will be organized in concrete.

Mr. Speaker, if you allow me, I will suddenly explain my amendments. The first amendment concerns the acquisition in the capital provision. If a new player comes through an acquisition, that player must take over at least 25% of the capital, otherwise the counter must be set back to zero.

Secondly, the coverage rate of 10 to 80 % must be achieved on its own and not through subcontracting, because otherwise we believe that three different business units in the different regions will be obtained. Some colleagues can then get their post in their own language, but I don’t think that was the purpose of the bill.

A third amendment that we had submitted in the committee concerns an evaluation of this legislation. In fact, the rapporteur should have been so correct to mention this. Other speakers joined. The amendment was approved in the committee. I hope that this legislation will be able to be evaluated and improved in our case.

Today, eighteen years separate us from the Green Paper adopted by the European Commission on the development of the single market for postal services; eighteen years to deconstruct the postal monopoly and impose the large liberalized market for postal services; eighteen years to impose an ideological model that does not resist the test of facts, but has yet imposed itself.

I did not refer here to the history of the liberalization of the postal sector, the liberalization wanted and imposed by Europe, the total liberalization that we, Belgian socialists, have always fought from the beginning, whether in this parliament or at the European level.

I will also not highlight all the fears and criticisms that accompanied these three directives: too rapid and unthinkable liberalization, lack of warnings, endangering the public service, risk of social dumping; the list is still long.

I will, however, recall that, in the face of this imposed liberalization, the Socialists have chosen a constructive attitude by making sure to frame it as much as possible in order to maintain, for all our fellow citizens, a quality postal service.

This does not mean, however, that the Socialist Group of the House considers the future of the postal sector, its users and its workers as a long, quiet river. Our concerns remain real. What about the long-term maintenance of the quality of the postal service across the whole territory? What about ⁇ ining quality employment for all workers in this sector? What about ⁇ ining and strengthening the social role of the factor? What about ⁇ ining the strengthening of the postal network based, Mrs. Minister, on real post offices and not on Post Points?

Finally, the theory is always beautiful and full of promises. According to those who have always defended this liberalization: “The complete opening of the postal markets will promote the increase of their overall size. It will also contribute to the maintenance of long-term and quality jobs in the companies providing universal service.”

Here, dear colleagues, are the European theories of the liberalization of the postal sector. A profitable operation for all: simple citizens, small, medium or large enterprise clients, historical operators or current and future private operators, workers of today and tomorrow.

Unfortunately, this textual optimism collides with the effects already felt in our country by La Poste, a historic operator who, by adapting to the future liberalized market, makes, today, many collateral victims. I appointed postal workers and ordinary customers. The number of job losses has already been seen. This was mentioned by my colleague. In fact, is the creation of neighborhood factors or auxiliary factors a social advance? Does the explosion in the number of temporary workers already employed by La Poste constitute a recruitment model for a public company? and no.

The liberalization of the sector is not a social neutral operation.

Obviously, you will reiterate to me that it was imperative that La Poste evolved, at the same time of course as society; that, in the face of the technological evolution and the eruption of e-mail, the historical postal operator had to adapt. I am well aware of this, but I continue to regret certain orientations, some radicalizations that deny in part what, however, has never been denied, even by Europe.

I will quote Mr. Barnier said on April 29: “The postal service has a real human, social and territorial dimension.” Unfortunately, words are not everything.

During a press conference, it was recalled that the delegated administrator, Mr. Thijs, he was already distracted by a speech that, in my opinion, is not reassuring; others have heard it reassuring. For me, this speech was very worrying. In essence, Mr. Thijs warned: "After January 1, 2011 and during the following years, we must continue our process of change in order to observe the effects of the continuous decline in volume and the loss of monopoly money."

I agree with the concerns of Mr. Thijs facing the arrival of new operators, it is not always for the same reasons. What worries me already today are the testimonies, increasingly numerous, which I receive. Yesterday again, I met two people, interim workers benefiting from day-to-day contracts: every day, a new contract must be signed to go to the sorting center in Brussels. This is completely unacceptable for a public company.

Without, however, liberalizing, Mr. Minister, the post company should ⁇ be modernized, but in no case, on the back of the workers. It is regrettable to observe that the evolution of the working conditions and the conditions of employment at La Poste are now totally deteriorated.

Mr. Minister, it has often been discussed, with humor, about the Dutch housewife who, in Holland, today, by the fact of liberalization, distributes the mail after having taken care of her children; this can also concern the pensioner who is in charge of sending the letters in his neighborhood. I have the impression that the social detricotage carried out today in our public enterprise leads us gradually to this Dutch housewife.

Workers are not and will not be the only victims of the liberalization of the postal sector: customers may be others. Some users will probably be winners: big customers, those who send a huge amount of mail, who will be able to request a private operator and get interesting prices.

But should we really extend on the rise in the price of stamp that anticipates the liberalization of the postal sector? Should I talk about the closing of the offices? For four years, every week in this parliament, questions concern this issue.

Should I mention the disappearance of postal boxes in our neighborhoods, the quality of the service offered to Mr. and Mrs. All-le-Monde or the basic service that has not improved due to the total opening of the market?

And let’s not come and tell me, Mr. Minister, that this has nothing to do with liberalization! Obviously, this is not written black on white in the directive texts. But it is because we were going to completely open the sector to competition that measures were taken, because a monopoly is removed, market shares and therefore money are removed from the Post, so that it can offer all its services and all its service missions.

As a socialist, I have already said and will repeat, we are opposed to this dogmatic liberalization. But we never merely said “no,” Mr. Minister. There have been significant discussions within this committee with one of your predecessors, Mr. Daems, and thanks to this parliament, the opening did not take place in 2007 and was postponed to 2011.

We have thus won a few battles, since the government has chosen to frame this liberalization with a number of shutdowns today, both in terms of working conditions, territory coverage and the extent of universal service. This text avoids the jungle and brings some legal certainty, which is absolutely necessary a few weeks before the fateful date of January 1, 2011.

My group will, of course, vote on this text, because we know the urgency and importance of seeing a text, even imperfect, frame this liberalization that will be effective in a few weeks. This will not be a happy vote on the part of the Socialist group, only a necessary vote, without joy but responsible.

Know, however, Mr. Minister, that the legislative process, if it ends, the effects of liberalization have not yet reached their end! We will therefore remain active to guarantee a true public service and avoid as much as possible the adverse consequences for our fellow citizens, but also and above all for postal workers.

In this regard, I refer again to Mr. European Commissioner Barnier, who seems sensitive to all these situations, since, on 9 September last year, he called, at the level of the European Parliament, for the creation of a user group to accurately evaluate the effects of this liberalization.

The Socialist group took the ball in the leap, submitting a resolution aimed at strengthening the User Advisory Committee, so that this body actually has sufficient resources to assess the concrete effects of this liberalization.

We have often denounced the Dutch model, this model so much praised by the liberalization adherents, this model doing the good part to precarious employment with a model of distribution of mail by pensioners and household women. In short, a model that sacrifices public service by saving as much human wealth as possible on its staff to maximize profits.

On November 16, Dutch workers went on strike to protest TNT’s plans to cut 3,000 jobs. This is the effect of the Dutch liberalization that has generated another loss of 3,000 jobs! Here too, I assume that the company talks about preparing itself best for the liberalized market and that the managers explain, like Mr. Thijs, that it is necessary to continue change and liberalization.

I may have been a long process, but it is an eighteen-year process. I point out that, behind this speech, there are only 40,000 workers and all the citizens who, today or tomorrow, may still have their mail! Nevertheless, I do not feel that this interests a lot of people. Know that all this process has its limits, especially in a public enterprise!

Let us not forget the importance of the next management contract between La Poste and the State, this management contract that we hope to be concluded quickly and which, due to the political situation, is currently suspended. This new management contract will play a major role for the future of the sector, which has a leading human and social dimension in our cities and villages. I can assure you that the Socialist Party will pay attention to this.

So we will vote on this text today so that our country keeps its commitments at the European level, so that La Poste has complete legal certainty to assume its role and ensure its survival in a liberalized market. More than ever, we will remain vigilant and attentive to the effects of this liberalization on our fellow citizens and postal workers.

Mr. Minister, we will still have many debates and, I hope, regular evaluations, since we also voted for an amendment of the sp.a which requires an evaluation by this parliament in relation to the liberalization of this postal sector.

We have had an extensive discussion in the committee. I will not repeat it.

First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteurs, the president of the committee and all active members for their contributions. We have held a very open debate, testifying to the fact that we have adopted amendments of majority and opposition in the committee, whatever that may mean today.

I would like to enter on one point again. This is an important debate. It is about ten million Belgians who frequently use De Post, about a company bpost with just under 30 000 employees, one of the largest companies in our country. This is a sector that is in full motion.

In the exhibitions, many say that liberalization goes far too far. Some say it’s a liberalization that doesn’t go far enough. From this I can only conclude that this is a good liberalization.

Many say that the text is right. Some say the text is too left. We can therefore assume that the present text is a good text.

I want to warn you about one thing. Some say that the text has much of a false liberalization away. This is not real liberalization.

Then I wonder why the company operating in the post has drastically increased its profitability in recent years from a loss of approximately EUR 50 million to a profit of EUR 240 million and reduced its number of employees from 40 000 to 30 000. The reason was that they were warned and that they knew that liberalization was coming.

To those who say that the market will not open and there will be no new competition, I ask you to explain why the head of De Post today says in the newspaper that he fears that his volume in his business could decrease by 20% in the coming years. This proves that the opening of the market will be a fact.

I have great respect for bpost. It is a public company that has demonstrated in recent years that one can modernize in a social way.

The day we expose other sectors of our society, I think of railways, to the same form of liberalization, we will see that the NMBS, a company that does not do as well today as The Post, will also do a bit better.

What we are proposing is not blind liberalisation. There are conditions, especially when it comes to coverage. Is it so abnormal to impose coverage conditions? Liberalization of the telecommunications sector. Also, operators are required to guarantee coverage. And this is a good thing in terms of 2G and 3G, that is, mobile internet. Today, all telecom operators must guarantee a minimum coverage, which is both possible and necessary.

A second requirement in this bill is the need to use workers, except in the transport sector. We are also inspired by the Swedish model. Sweden carried out its liberalization in 1993 and showed that this liberalization works with workers. This is why the Swedish model has been one of our sources of inspiration.

Mr. Speaker, we have adopted this draft in the committee – and hopefully later in the plenary session – in some special circumstances. Everyone knows the current political situation. When I started the discussion in the committee, I saw, frankly, a large gap between the various parties. Sometimes I felt like a mediator who had to try to reconcile irreconcilable views. At the end of the committee discussion, I was very pleased to conclude that both colleagues from the N-VA and from the PS, as well as from other parties, voted in favour of the draft. I hope this can be a prelude to much more.

I would like to thank everyone for the complex work that has been done here. We actually spent a lot of time on it. Thanks to everyone’s cooperation, however, we have reached a good and balanced outcome.

Finding balance was the challenge. I would like to express this explicitly, because it has not been very clear in the plenary debate that we wanted to find a balance between, on the one hand, the competitiveness we need to develop in Europe and, on the other hand, the possible costs of universal service. The cost of the universal service of course determines how much money will be spent on it.

Liberalization in the United Kingdom has demonstrated that at some point, not only did the cost for consumers rise, but also the cost for the State had to rise enormously. There was a negative effect twice. We have taken this crucial factor into account.

We also sought a balance that, without negative social consequences, would improve the service and cost for the consumer.

That was a lot of challenges. If we had focused on one aspect, we would probably have had a different legislation. I think it is the merit of what is on the table today, that it balances all the different aspects, which we all think are equally important.

What is crucial is that all this had to happen in a declining market. If you can organize competition in a growing market, then of course you have a very different situation and then you could have made other decisions here too. Unfortunately, we must take into account the situation as it is.

I regret that some have labeled the changes and reforms we have carried out as a downturn. If one goes to look at, for example, the differentiation that has been carried out and when one asks the customers about it, then one sees that the evolution of the postal points is not considered by the customers as a negative evolution, but rather as the creation of more possibilities, with in addition a minimum guarantee of postal offices that are clearly described, let us not lose sight of that. Therefore, more possibilities are created.

Professionalization was carried out. It was referred to the phone, the call centers. That has come to be able to spend more time with the people who struggle to get to the lock, in this way they no longer have to be in line because the lock operator is constantly disturbed by the phone and may not be able to formulate an answer efficiently.

The results are clear. The parameters and indicators are positive, both at the financial level, at the level of customer-friendliness and at the level of service quality. In the falling market, we have therefore not carried out a reduction operation, but precisely provided for differentiation. That is a positive and a merit of bpost itself.

What is right, and I absolutely don’t want to put it under chairs or benches, is that this, of course, could only happen through the constant efforts of the staff. Yes, we have asked them a lot. It is correct that it has not become easier for the employees of bpost. However, we have carried out an operation of constant cost savings without dismissals, without staff submissions and in a gentle way.

Colleagues, agreeing on the rules of the game is the best guarantee that, among other things, the cost for the citizen will not increase. It seems to be a contradiction, but due to the specificity of the product in combination with the market, I think especially the geographical areas and also the product mix, it could happen that the price for the consumer would rise.

By negotiating these rules of play, we have the best guarantee that both the SMEs, which have been very little addressed in the debate, and the citizens will not be the victims of liberalization. That is what we stand for, sure and firmly.

With bpost, we will continue on the path taken in the coming period. It is a path of further professionalization, efficiency gains, quality improvement and customer-friendliness, but also of respect for employees.

I would also like to answer the question about the provisions. In fact, according to European accounting rules, one is obliged to make a commission only when one has sight of the outcome of the file. Since we do not yet have a vision of the outcome of the file, we have decided not to do so at the moment. We are still in a phase where only questions are asked. I would also like to add that the auditors approved the annual accounts. To say that bpost is not forward-looking is completely contrary to the policy and strategy of the past years. I think that strategy and policy are the best proof that bpost is very forward-looking. It has also ensured that one is prepared for market liberalization and that one can face the future with confidence.

Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the fact that the instrument of the management agreement, which we will decide on together, still exists. Then it will also become clear what importance the Parliament and the Government will attach to the provision of postal services. That instrument remains. So we can handle it.

In conclusion, I think that we do not have blind liberalization, which is a positive thing, but that we are also not blind to the market situation and the context data that could avoid a social massacre. We could have stuck our heads in the sand, which would have been much easier. This, however, would only have been completely irresponsible to the workers we defend too.