In Denmark, it is already too late. The postal service has ended after 400 years and with it 1,500 jobs. Letters are now delivered at high cost by a single private logistics company with a monopoly over critical infrastructure. Danish residents, especially the 271,000 digitally exempt individuals dependent on physical
Oliver Roethig
In 1489, the Thurn and Taxis family had an imperial monopoly to carry the mail of Europe’s elites, helping turn Brussels into the heart of the continent’s first cross-border postal system. Five centuries later, that network has become a public service for all – but this status is now at risk.
Just kilometres from the old Thurn and Taxis district, the European Commission is drafting reforms that will determine whether Europe’s oldest communications network is modernised for the public good or sentenced to death by attrition.
Until now, postal services guarantee everyone can send and receive parcels and letters at affordable prices.
This is called the “universal service obligation’” — the public mission that connects all citizens to essential delivery services. The postal network balances costs for delivery to remain accessible and affordable for all no matter where you live – not just those in profitable city centres.
But this system is in crisis.
Since the EU’s push for liberalisation in 2008, rural communities find services disappearing. Europe’s postal workers have seen job losses, worsening conditions and declining wages.
But this is not because postal services are needed less. While letter volumes have halved, parcel delivery — especially since the Covid-19 pandemic’s e-commerce boom — has surged.
The EU’s current rules, designed decades ago, no longer reflect the reality of what we need and expect from our post.
Gig economy loopholes
The result is that we are stuck with a fragmented ecosystem of platforms and gig economy delivery services that too often avoid postal regulations, while capturing profitable urban markets. Some private delivery companies benefit from our shared public postal system that serves everyone. But they don’t contribute fairly to its maintenance.
Other platforms and delivery companies like Amazon use their own private networks, which often rely on more precarious forms of work: bogus self-employment, layered subcontracting and oppressive algorithmic management.
This creates unfair competition based not on better service, but who can squeeze the most out of delivery workers. These private services deliver on profitable city transportation routes while exploiting under-funded public services to cover unprofitable rural routes alone.
When platforms advertise “free delivery,” the reality is that someone is paying: usually workers through low wages and precarious conditions, or communities through disappearing services in less profitable areas.
Something rotten in the state of Denmark
In Denmark, it is already too late. The postal service has ended after 400 years and with it 1,500 jobs. Letters are now delivered at high cost by a single private logistics company with a monopoly over critical infrastructure. Danish residents, especially the 271,000 digitally exempt individuals dependent on physical letters, will suffer the consequences.
The European Commission’s EU Delivery Act represents a historic opportunity to rebalance the system.
But Europe’s 1.8 million postal workers and their representative unions worry that the commission treats this as a purely technical matter, and not a political decision over the survival of our public postal networks.
We want a comprehensive modernisation of the EU postal regulatory framework. This includes bringing all delivery operators under the same rules, ensuring fair competition based on quality rather than worker exploitation and guaranteeing that postal services remain a public good serving everyone.
Importantly, this means ensuring the universal service obligation reflects the reality of parcel delivery.
Parcels are now as essential as letters once were — and postal networks are the public assets of parcels logistics. Built over generations with public investment and serving the common good, these networks represent infrastructure that benefits all Europeans.
They are services of general economic interest, essential to territorial cohesion, social inclusion and economic opportunity across the continent.
This universal service must remain accessible to all at affordable prices.
This means preserving the direct link between citizens and postal operators: the promise that you can walk to your local post office, send a parcel and trust it will arrive at any address in the country at a price you can afford.
The stakes for Europe’s postal service are high.
This is why we are committed to mobilise across Europe to save our post. We stand against any plans that would undermine postal workers’ livelihoods – and the universality of the service they provide to Europeans wherever they live.
Because we don’t want to end up with a 21st century version of the original Thurn-and-Taxis system, where only the rich and powerful decide who does and who doesn’t deserve to receive mail and parcels.
