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Post-CEO Roberto Cirillo (51) is afraid: there is no money, 2023 will be “particularly demanding”. That is why we will soon have to dig deeper into our wallets when posting a letter or a package.
Blick made the comparison: we have to admit defeat several times. Lithuania beats Switzerland in inflation-adjusted price increases for letters. Between 2012 and 2021, postal mail in Lithuania increased by only 5 percent. With us, letters have become 11.8 percent more expensive during this time – if you take inflation into account. However, the price increase was higher in all other European countries.
Finland is trailing behind, where letter prices rose by 281.5 percent over the same period. In the European average, they even increased by 85.21 percent, according to figures from Deutsche Post.
1.39 minutes of work for a letter
According to EU guidelines, sending a form letter within the country should be “affordable” in the countries of the European Union. To take into account the different incomes, it is compared how long one has to work in the different states to send a form letter.
On average, a European factory worker had to work exactly 4.44 minutes in 2022 to pay postage costs. Malta beats us very close here. A worker there had to work just 1.37 minutes to get a form letter stamped. In Switzerland it was 1.39 minutes. In Estonia, on the other hand, the worker stands at the machine for almost 10 minutes in order to send a few lines to his beloved. 9:46 minutes to be exact.
Letter takes a maximum of five days
Switzerland drops from second to third place when purchasing power is included in the letter price in addition to labor costs: at these consolidated letter prices, a Maltese woman pays only 0.48 euros for a standard letter. A Cypriot pays 0.65 euros. And a Swiss woman would of course pay in Swiss francs, but in the Deutsche Post list it is also in euros, namely 0.76. A Dane paid more than four times more: 3.33 euros.
According to the German Federal Network Agency, other countries, such as Switzerland, also have a cheaper letter variant that takes longer to travel than the more expensive variant – like us with A and B mail. In some countries, the PO box variant takes up to five working days to reach the recipient’s mailbox. With us it is usually in the mailbox the next day – and that should be the case even in a mountain valley.
Also on the front with parcels
Given the high Swiss quality in mail delivery – and the top position in Europe in terms of price – the price increase demanded by Swiss Post is more understandable because of the increased costs.
However, the post office not only charges higher letter prices, but also more money for the package. A country comparison is more difficult here because there are different weight limits and the delivery conditions differ – at least that’s what the Swiss Post says. For example, delivery in parcel boxes is common in other countries. And our post office does not have an independent country comparison for parcels.
For example, Swiss Post has the University of Friborg draw up a parcel price index. This shows the following for 2022: If you take a value of 100 for the Swiss price level, Great Britain is cheaper at 78. Austria with 80, Belgium with 82 and Germany with 91 are also cheaper. The Scandinavian countries, but especially the Mediterranean countries, are more expensive. The value for Spain is even 275.
Federal Council calls shipping costs “cheap”
Swiss Post also adds this price index for parcels to the documents sent to the Ministry of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications and the Ministry of Finance as the representative of Swiss Post’s owner. Partly on the basis of these documents, the Federal Council came to the conclusion in 2022: “Swiss Post’s prices for letters and parcels are quite cheap in international comparison.”
Post boss Roberto Cirillo (51) even warned in a Blick interview for “French conditions” if the price monitor rejects the postage increase. In France, there are cheap rates for deliveries in the cities and high rates for deliveries in the countryside.
Course observer Stefan Meierhans (54) may have heard Cirillo – and, as usual, included the country comparisons in his considerations.
Source:Blick
I am Liam Livingstone and I work in a news website. My main job is to write articles for the 24 Instant News. My specialty is covering politics and current affairs, which I’m passionate about. I have worked in this field for more than 5 years now and it’s been an amazing journey. With each passing day, my knowledge increases as well as my experience of the world we live in today.
