Member States shall take steps to ensure that the tariffs for each of the services forming part of the provision of the universal service comply with the following principles:
- prices must be affordable and must be such that all users have access to the services provided,
- prices must be geared to costs; Member States may decide that a uniform tariff should be applied throughout their national territory,
- the application of a uniform tariff does not exclude the right of the universal service provider(s) to conclude individual agreements on prices with customers,
- tariffs must be transparent and non-discriminatory.
1. In order to ensure the cross-border provision of the universal service, Member States shall encourage their universal service providers to arrange that in their agreements on terminal dues for intra-Community cross-border mail, the following principles are respected:
- terminal dues shall be fixed in relation to the costs of processing and delivering incoming cross-border mail,
- levels of remuneration shall be related to the quality of service achieved,
- terminal dues shall be transparent and non-discriminatory.
2. The implementation of these principles may include transitional arrangements designed to avoid undue disruption on postal markets or unfavourable implications for economic operators provided there is agreement between the operators of origin and receipt; such arrangements shall, however, be restricted to the minimum required to achieve these objectives.
1. Member States shall take the measures necessary to ensure, within two years of the date of entry into force of this Directive, that the accounting of the universal service providers is conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Article.
2. The universal service providers shall keep separate accounts within their internal accounting systems at least for each of the services within the reserved sector on the one hand and for the non-reserved services on the other. The accounts for the non-reserved services should clearly distinguish between services which are part of the universal service and services which are not. Such internal accounting systems shall operate on the basis of consistently applied and objectively justifiable cost accounting principles.
3. The accounting systems referred to in paragraph 2 shall, without prejudice to paragraph 4, allocate costs to each of the reserved and to the non-reserved services respectively in the following manner:
(a) costs which can be directly assigned to a particular service shall be so assigned;
(b) common costs, that is costs which cannot be directly assigned to a particular service, shall be allocated as follows:
(i) whenever possible, common costs shall be allocated on the basis of direct analysis of the origin of the costs themselves;
(ii) when direct analysis is not possible, common cost categories shall be allocated on the basis of an indirect linkage to another cost category or group of cost categories for which a direct assignment or allocation is possible; the indirect linkage shall be based on comparable cost structures;
(iii) when neither direct nor indirect measures of cost allocation can be found, the cost category shall be allocated on the basis of a general allocator computed by using the ratio of all expenses directly or indirectly assigned or allocated, on the one hand, to each of the reserved services and, on the other hand, to the other services.
4. Other cost accounting systems may be applied only if they are compatible with paragraph 2 and have been approved by the national regulatory authority. The Commission shall be informed prior to their application.
5. National regulatory authorities shall ensure that compliance with one of the cost accounting systems described in paragraphs 3 or 4 is verified by a competent body which is independent of the universal service provider. Member States shall ensure that a statement concerning compliance is published periodically.
6. The national regulatory authority shall keep available, to an adequate level of detail, information on the cost accounting systems applied by a universal service provider, and shall submit such information to the Commission on request.
7. On request, detailed accounting information arising from these systems shall be made available in confidence to the national regulatory authority and to the Commission.
8. Where a given Member State has not reserved any of the services reservable under Article 7 and as not established a compensation fund for universal service provision, as permitted under Article 9(4), and where the national regulatory authority is satisfied that none of the designated universal service providers in that Member State is in receipt of State subvention, hidden or otherwise, the national regulatory authority may decide not to apply the requirements of paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of this Article. The national regulatory authority shall inform the Commission of all such decisions.
The financial accounts of all universal service providers shall be drawn up, submitted to audit by an independent auditor and published in accordance with the relevant Community and national legislation to commercial undertakings.
CHAPTER 6
Quality of services
