Keywords Summary
Competition - Public undertakings or undertakings to which States grant special or exclusive rights - Undertakings with responsibility for the management of services of general economic interest - Postal service - Imposition of internal taxes in order to offset the costs of processing and delivering incoming trans-border mail posted in large quantities with the postal services of another Member State - Whether compatible with the rules of the Treaty - Limits
(EC Treaty, Art. 59 (now, after amendment, Art. 49 EC) and Arts 86 and 90(1) (now Arts 82 EC and 86(1) EC))
$$In the absence of an agreement between the postal services of the Member States concerned fixing terminal dues in relation to the actual costs of processing and delivering incoming trans-border mail, it is not contrary to Article 90 of the Treaty (now Article 86 EC), read in conjunction with Article 86 of the Treaty (now Article 82 EC) and Article 59 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 49 EC), for a body such as Deutsche Post to exercise the right provided for by Article 25(3) of the Universal Postal Convention, in the version adopted on 14 December 1989, to charge, in the cases referred to in the second sentence of Article 25(1) and Article 25(2) thereof, internal postage on items of mail posted in large quantities with the postal services of a Member State other than the Member State to which that body belongs. On the other hand, the exercise of such a right is contrary to Article 90(1) of the Treaty, read in conjunction with Article 86 thereof, in so far as the result is that such a body may demand the entire internal postage applicable in the Member State to which it belongs without deducting the terminal dues corresponding to those items of mail paid by the abovementioned postal services.
( see paras 61 and operative part )