At the meeting held with Mr. Dimitri Kumsishvili, the First Deputy Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development, on April 16, an agreement was reached over the draft law on Postal Union with regard to the following:

1. Licensing shall apply only to the Universal Postal Service and the Universal Reserve Postal Service market segments. Consequently, the requirement to have appropriate material and technical resources and duly qualified personnel shall be established only for the operator willing to deliver the Universal Postal Service – the above requirement is also outlined in  the EU - Georgia Association Agreement (Chapter 6 , Article 101 );
2. The segment of the Postal and Parcel shipments market that does not include the Universal Postal Service segment shall remain liberalized. Only the operator authorization shall be required from this segment without any additional bureaucratic/formal barriers imposed by The Georgian National Communications Commission. Subsequently, the operator authorization procedure provided for in the draft law shall come into compliance with the economic rationale of  ‘the authorization procedure’ prescribed by the Georgian legislation;
3. The provisions of the draft that determine the regulation fees payable by operators to the regulator shall be brought in conformity with the statutory requirements outlined in the law on Regulation Fees. Subsequently, the draft law should not determine the regulation fee rate amount;
4. The provision requiring the approval of the list of other services by the ministerial act shall be withdrawn from the draft (Article 22). Thus, the draft will prevent the recurrence of the practice introduced [1] by the Minister of Finance’s order #30, of January 25, 2013, that has been declared void by the courts of three instances.  

Agreement could not be reached on granting the exclusive authority to Georgian Post (idem National Operator) to carry out the so-called Reserve Service – receipt/processing/dispatching/shipment of parcels weighing up to 30 kg and their delivery to the addressee. It is of fundamental importance to restrict the above area because the provision will impose regulations essentially restricting competition in this segment of the market, which contradicts the international best practices that acknowledge the full liberalization of the market, supporting free competition (EU Directive 2002/39/EC), and abolishing Reserve Postal Service Area (EU directive 2008/6/EC) as a way to a successful reforming of the field. In accordance with the practices of the EU countries, up until 2002, the maximum limit allowed for the Reserve Service under the pertinent laws concerned shipment of letters and postcards weighing up to 100 grams.  Hence, no analogue for setting the above advantage provided for by the Georgian legislation, including the shipment of parcels weighing up to 30 kg, can be found in international practices.