Servizi postali

The paper discusses the evolutionary path of the European postal industry turned from a inefficient state-owned monopoly into highly competitive market, in sight of the envisaged market liberalization by the year 2011. National operators adopt different strategies toward the increasing competition. France and the UK are willing to maintain Universal Service Obligations and an access regime to their delivery networks. The Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavian countries instead favor value-added services, intermediate between ordinary letters and the express courier. While the former base their strategy by maintaining free, universal and non excludable letter delivery, the latter may introduce new charges in delivery. The industry face the so called e-substitution, arising when paper letters are substituted by e-mails.