Opening today’s GUE/NGL group conference on the liberalisation of postal services, Irish MEP Joe Higgins said citizens were being hit hard by the Commission’s ongoing drive to privatise Europe’s postal services.

“This relentless process of liberalisation totally ignores the impact on workers and customers as well as the social functions of public postal services. The EU postal sector is a worth €94 billion and should be kept in full state ownership as a valuable public resource. Democratic control, worker and customer consultation are the answers if reform is needed in such a sector” he said.

Calling postal liberalisation a good example of market failure, Dutch MEP Dennis de Jong said “there’s no point having three competing companies delivering post three times a day” and spoke of the myth of the shrinking postal services market. “The propaganda effort being mounted by the Commission only reflects the opinions of multinationals, not customers or workers”.

Concluding the main points German MEP Sabine Wils emphasised the group’s solidarity with Greek workers in their fight against the destruction of the public sector. “The GUE/NGL will keep working to gain broader support to protect public services both within and outside the European Parliament” she said “extra-parliamentary forces are extremely important, and we will maintain our support for organisations and trade unions in their fight against deregulation”.

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