While many European governments deserve criticism for their high tax rates and destructive welfare states, sometimes America is the nation that is lagging when it comes to free market reform.
Corporate tax rates are one example, since every European nation has a lower rate than America. Social Security reform is another area, since many European nations have funded systems based on personal accounts.
And, as the Wall Street Journal explains, the Europeans are also beating America when it comes to postal reform. Several nations already have eliminated government monopoly systems and others are heading in that direction, though backwards nations such as France are trying to block continent-wide liberalization:
Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and the U.K. have opened their postal markets completely; Germany and the Netherlands have said they plan to do so soon. Brussels began liberalization efforts back in 1997 and a 2002 law envisioned an open postal market by January 1, 2009.
Yet five years after that tentative deadline was set, and with 18 months still to go, the likes of France’s La Poste complain that they need more time to prepare. It’s unclear what exactly they will be able to accomplish in those extra two years that they couldn’t manage in the first dozen.
One safe bet is they’ll continue piling up easy profits to use in new businesses they’ve started. To take one example, La Poste, Deutsche Post and others have used the proceeds from their letters monopolies — a €90 billion business in Europe — to open banks.
In the meantime, consumers increasingly have to break the bank just to send a letter. In the 10 members of the EU-15 that haven’t completed or planned postal liberalization, the average stamp price rose by 7 European cents, or about 18%, between December 2001 and February 2007, according to data from the Free and Fair Post Initiative. In the five countries that have liberalized, the average price fell by 2 cents, or about 4%. Studies show that full market opening, including cross-border competition, could drive prices down by as much as 20% to 25%.
