[Robbing the taxpayer and at the same time killing communities, as the Post Office/Shop (many are only profitable because of Post Office income), is the only daily chance people get to see each other.  You can see the benefit of the EU to the Illuminati tin hearts.]

EU makes Royal Mail second class

Sunday Telegraph May 18, 2008

Christopher Booker

THE DAMAGE done to our postal service by EU rules gets worse. Last week I wrote about the Government report warning that our "universal postal service" is at risk because, under EU postal services directives, Royal Mail has lost the most lucrative part of its business to 19 private companies, turning its hefty profits into a £279 million loss. Now we learn that 3,000 more post offices may have to close, if the £1 billion-a-year contract to handle pensions and benefits payments goes to a rival company under EU procurement directives that require such public contracts to be put out to tender.

Under the same rules, the Post Office has already lost contracts worth £168 million a year for handling television and driving licences, which is why it now needs £150 million a year from the taxpayer to survive.

Even this much state support had to be pleaded for in Brussels by the Government, as we can see from a European Commission, letter of last November, graciously permitting it to pay this subsidy under EU "state aid" rules.

First the EU orders us to sell off all the bits of our postal service that make a profit. The: we have to go to Brussels on bended knee for permission to subsidise the resulting losses. It is hardly surprising that our postal regulator, Postcomm, was last week proposing that Royal Mail should be partly privatised, as the only way to get round these "state aid" rules. But who would want to buy shares in a business that the EU is doing its utmost to ensure can only be run at a loss?