Legislative and Jurisprudential Developments in the Postal Sector in 2011

Abstract

Postal services in Poland are governed by the Postal Law Act of 2003 (in Polish: Prawo Pocztowe) which maintains the monopoly of the public operator Poczta Polska with respect of letters weighing up to 50 grams. However, Poland will have to fully liberalize its postal services market by 31 December 2012. For this reason, the Government adopted on 5 October 2010 Assumptions for the Draft Postal Law Act as proposed by the Minister of Infrastructure. However, the Draft was not placed on the Government’s legislative agenda for 2011. Thus, the majority of legislative work will have to be completed in 2012, a fact that jeopardizes the implementation of Directive 2008/6/EC. The latter indicates 31 December 2012 as the deadline beyond which Member States must not maintain a privileged position of operators providing universal postal services.