In accordance with the Post Office Act, the Authority may impose “essential requirements” on the supply of postal services in Gibraltar.

These requirements shall be based on the following non-economic reasons –

a) the confidentiality of correspondence;

b) the security of the network as regards the transport of dangerous goods.

Therefore, the following Notice No. P03/2020 imposes a number of essential requirements on all postal service providers in Gibraltar.

In 2013, the Authority designated the Royal Gibraltar Post Office (“RGPO”) as the universal service provider (“USP”) in the postal services market for a period of 7 years ending on the 17th July 2020. 

The Authority is required to take such measures as it considers necessary to ensure that the conditions under which universal postal services are assigned are based on the principles of transparency, non-discrimination and proportionality. As such the Authority determined that a public consultation would be carried out to determine whether or not the RGPO would again be designated as USP. However, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Authority determined that proceeding with the public consultation during the period of uncertainty had the capacity to render the exercise fruitless. 

Therefore, the following Notice No. P01/2020 – Designation of Universal Service Provider extends the RGPO’s current designation by a period no longer than one month in order to allow the Authority to carry out the necessary public consultation.