The boss of Deutsche Post has hit out at the snail-like deregulation of Britain’s postal sector.

Klaus Zumwinkel, chief executive of the German firm, attacked the ongoing bickering between monopoly Royal Mail Group and regulator Postcom, blasting the situation as “a mess” and calling for “free and fair competition”.

Last year, Postcom granted Deutsche Post an interim licence to handle mail while the sector is opened up [WAMN: 30-Aug-02], but this licence runs to 40 million items a year – half the volume of post Royal Mail handles in just one day.

The process has been slowed by arguments between the watchdog and Royal Mail over how much the latter should charge to deliver rivals’ mail [WAMN: 21-May-03]. Deutsche Post plans to deliver around 90% of the letters it handles via the Royal Mail network.

“We want to bring another choice to customers here,” complained Zumwinkel. “We have a licence to do that but the pricing regime and all the stuff between Royal Mail and the regulator – it’s a mess.”

Data sourced from: BrandRepublic (UK); additional content by WARC staff