Dieter Plehwe describes how the various European postal services, in a context of crisis of Fordism and state regulation, had to position themselves against new innovative groups with aggressive expansion policies. It shows the decisive role played by national governments and the intertwining of private and public actors, national and European regulations.
In a comparative contribution, Dieter Plehwe addresses the challenges of the processes of privatization, deregulation and European integration of postal services. These concern both the historic national operators, the new competitors present in these markets, the workers and their unions and finally the citizens who wish to see universal services maintained. The author shows that the groups present in the European postal market must position themselves against new players and participate in the creation of global markets in the logistics sector. The German Post Office is a model for its ability to reconcile the maintenance of a universal public service with great efficiency in markets that have been reorganized since the 1970s.
In these same years, the crisis of Fordism and state regulation of the economy encouraged the development of innovative groups in the postal services sector. These new players, particularly from the American or Australian market, have had a decisive impact. Their mode of production has allowed them to lower transport costs. The integration of different activities made it possible to amortize the maintenance of basic services at a low price. Since these firms were not large bureaucracies burdened by a large workforce, they were able to pursue aggressive expansion policies. By internationalizing, these groups ended up posing a challenge to the historic postal operators of different European countries.
From highlighting this context common to all European posts, Dieter Plehwe develops a typology of the reform trajectories of national actors. It shows how certain players (the German and Dutch Post Offices) reacted to this challenge by internationalizing their activities and integrating into the global markets being created in the logistics sector, while others (the French and British Post Office ) reacted more conservatively. The author shows the intricacy of private and public actors, national and European regulations. It appears that the support of national governments is decisive for groups to change their stature and integrate into international competition, including to maintain their traditional activities.
The author concludes with the historical connection between the creation of a universal public service and market activities in the postal sector. The idea of necessary competition is not as obvious as it seems. However, this ideal complementarity requires permanent political construction. At the European level as well as at the level of each country, the postal battles are only just beginning. The elements of clarification of the context, constitution of a typology of national actors in Europe and the precision of the relative positions of market and public service requirements carried out by Dieter Plehwe appear as essential benchmarks for understanding the structuring issues of this field .