Mail Privatization in Europe

The European Parliament is taking on a libertarian bête noire that Congress so far has been afraid to attack. Under legislation it approved this week, all postal monopolies in member states must be abolished by 2011 (two years later than the European Commission wanted, but who knows how many years before the U.S. has an open market in all forms of mail delivery). Britain, Finland, and Sweden already have opened up all aspects of the market to competition; Germany and the Netherlands are expected to follow suit soon.