The Dutch postal market is presenting a peculiar spectacle. PostNL wants to shed its legal obligation to provide the universal postal service because it is threatening to become loss-making. A consortium of Business Post and Spotta offers to take it over. The minister turns that offer down. And then the consortium doesn’t lodge an objection. Everyone seems relieved that nothing has changed. But is that relief justified?
A monopoly nobody wants anymore
The most uncomfortable fact in this file is that PostNL itself requested the withdrawal of its universal service designation. A company that can no longer profitably carry out its core task, and therefore asks to be released from that obligation, is forced by the government to stay — but under relaxed conditions. That is not market policy. That is crisis management dressed up as delay.
The easing of delivery standards (from next-day to three-day delivery by 2027, with lower reliability requirements) does not solve the structural problem. It buys time. But for whom, and for what?
The rejection of Business Post and Spotta
Minister Karremans doubted the feasibility of the alternative proposal. That is a legitimate concern — the network had not yet covered all households, and the financial underpinnings were incomplete. But the reasoning for not starting a selection procedure at all is weaker than it appears.
A selection procedure is precisely the instrument for testing that feasibility: transparent, comparative, with hard criteria. By not starting that procedure, the government denied itself the insight into whether alternatives would genuinely perform better or worse. The conclusion that Business Post and Spotta could not deliver was reached without the very process that should have substantiated it.
That Business Post and Spotta chose not to lodge an objection makes things no better. It suggests that the commercial attractiveness of the universal service designation, without further support, is limited, which is in itself telling about the financial sustainability of the universal postal service as currently structured.
What managers in transport and postal services should take from this
There are three lessons for managers operating in the transport and postal sector.
The first is that market structures held in place by political will eventually buckle under economic reality. Letter volumes are in structural decline. Costs are rising. Easing standards is not a strategy — it is a deferral. Anyone investing in or operating in this sector should plan for a market that will look fundamentally different in five to ten years, regardless of what the current policy letter says.
The second lesson is that the combination of shrinking volumes, rising costs, and political reluctance to reform is a dangerous cocktail. PostNL is caught between its statutory obligations, its shareholders, and a government that expects it to make a loss-making service profitable through regulatory adjustments. That is not a sustainable position. For suppliers, partners, and customers of PostNL, it is prudent to have contingency plans in place for a market without its current structure.
The third lesson touches on innovation. The real question is not who delivers the letters, but whether the volume of letters still justifies a standalone infrastructure at all. The integration of postal, parcel, and other delivery networks — something the minister herself identifies as desirable — is already well underway among the sector’s leading companies. Businesses investing now in combined networks, smart routing, and shared infrastructure are positioning themselves for tomorrow’s market. Those waiting for political clarity are waiting too long.
What Minister Herbert now needs to do
The new minister has inherited a file that her predecessor pushed forward. Parliament has not yet expressed a view on the future of the postal market. The legislation is moving. Standards are being relaxed. And PostNL is delivering… for now.
But the fundamental questions remain untouched. Who ultimately pays for the universal postal service if PostNL can no longer deliver it profitably? Is subsidy politically acceptable? Are there genuinely no alternatives, or has that question simply not been asked properly?
Herbert has the opportunity to open the debate that Karremans avoided: an honest, public conversation about what the Netherlands still expects from a universal postal service in 2030, who pays for it, and what market structure fits that answer. A parliamentary roundtable (as Business Post itself proposed) is a logical first step.
The real conclusion
PostNL’s monopoly has not been resolved. It has been postponed again. For managers in the sector, that means one thing: don’t wait, anticipate. The market will change. The only question is whether the sector takes control of that process itself, or waits for a political solution that works optimally for no one.
Walther Ploos van Amstel