Postal services

The process of liberalizing the postal services market in the EU was initially set in motion by the Green Paper on the development of the single market for postal services in 1992. The first reduction of the "reserved area" of postal services (i.e., the monopoly services reserved for government enterprises) was introduced in 1999.

The European legal framework with which the national regulatory authorities are to accelerate and promote the opening of markets consists of two EU directives from the years 1997 and 2002; in addition, the Third Postal Directive was published in the EU's Official Journal in February 2008. The ongoing process of liberalization has brought about a gradual reduction of reserved postal services, and the complete liberalization of the postal sector was realized on January 1, 2011.

In Austria, the European framework was implemented in the Postal Market Act (PMG), which went into effect on January 1, 2011.