This study is a systematic comparison of the prices of the postal services most used and belonging to the universal service (US) and provided by the universal service providers (USP) of each Member State of the European Union.
The analysis reveals that in 2010, in local currency, eleven countries did not modify the prices of the services considered. Two - Finland and Lithuania - reduced the prices of some services and the remaining countries, increased them.
It shows that in Portugal the prices of national priority mail up to 20g, non-priority national mail up to 20g, priority cross-border intra-community national mail up to 20g, and national parcels up to 2kg were kept below the EU15 average. With non-priority cross-border intra-community national mail up to 20g, we find that in 2010 the price is 3% above the EU average and 6% below the EU15 average; the opposite is true in terms of purchasing power parities (PPP), since the price is 7% below the UE average and 23% above the EU15 average.
In the comparison based on Euros and PPP, Portugal’s ranking for the services considered is found to be better than 2009, except for the non-priority intra-community correspondence, where, in Euros, it goes up one place, and for parcels, where the position was maintained, in Euros.
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