29 November 2013
29.11.2013
The Romanian Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications proposes for public consultation the draft decision regarding the designation of the National Company Romanian Post (CNPR) as a universal service provider in the field of postal services for the period 1 January 2014 – 31 December 2018, for all the postal services within the scope of universal service.
The Authority proposes the designation ex officio of a universal service provider since, following the call for offers published in September 2013, no company interested in becoming universal service providers has submitted a request that meets the format, as well as the eligibility conditions in order to be designated a universal service provider.
Taking into account the fact that the legal provisions impose ensuring the universal service for all the citizens of Romania, respectively the provision of a minimum set of services, at a certain quality level, on the entire national territory, ANCOM analysed, based on the information available, the capacity of the providers of postal services, authorised in Romania, to fulfil the obligations incumbent on the universal service provider and the possibility to designate ex officio one of these providers for the fulfilment of this obligation.
Thus, CNPR was found to hold more than 5,700 man served access/contact points, approximately 60% of all such points in Romania, each of them ensuring access for 3,550 inhabitants, on average. Furthermore, whereas the activity of all the other providers is focused mainly in urban areas, CNPR ensures coverage for the whole country, including for the sparsely populated rural areas situated in exceptional geographic conditions, more than 86% of all the CNPR access/contact points being in rural areas.
Taking into account these aspects, ANCOM proposes the designation ex officio of CNPR as a universal service provider for the period 1 January 2014 – 31 December 2018.
As a universal service provider, CNPR will have the obligation to provide the services for which it is to be designated, throughout the territory of Romania, including in remote geographic or sparsely populated areas, where the small number of postal items collected or distributed does not justify the presence of a provider of postal services, on commercial bases.
In the meantime, taking into account the imposed obligations, CNPR will have to ensure even tariffs on the whole territory of the country for the services within the scope of universal service, which will have to be cost-oriented and submitted to ANCOM for approval.
CNPR will have the capacity as a universal service provider for a five-year period, the Authority considering this period as sufficient to enable the operator to recover its possible investments and to retrieve the possible economic loss caused by the fulfilment of the obligations as a universal service provider.
Moreover, as a universal service provider, CNPR must comply with a series of obligations, among which elaborating and sending the separate financial statements to ANCOM, based on the separate accounts kept within the internal accounting system.
Therefore, ANCOM shall submit to public consultation the methodology of developing the separate accounting methodology and of elaborating separate financial statements by CNPR, as well as of auditing the respective financial statements, for the purpose of ensuring the coherence, the consistency and the relevance of the information provided, and of the manner of presenting and explaining this information.
Currently, the right of access to the universal service is ensured throughout the Romanian territory by CNPR, which holds the quality as a universal service provider until 31 December 2013, according to the Decision of the president of the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications no.293/2009 on the designation of the universal service provider in the postal services field, with the subsequent amendments and completions.
The documents submitted to public consultation are available, in Romanian, here. The interested persons are invited to send their comments and suggestions to the ANCOM headquarters (2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3), directly to the ANCOM Registry Office or by the ANCOM regional divisions, by 09.12.2013. Comments may also be sent by fax to +40 372 845 402 or by e-mail to:consultare@ancom.org.ro.
