Member States shall take steps to ensure that the tariffs for each of the services forming part of the universal service comply with the following principles:

prices shall be affordable and must be such that all users, independent of geographical location, and, in the light of specific national conditions, have access to the services provided. Member States may maintain or introduce the provision of a free postal service for the use of blind and partially-sighted persons,

prices shall be cost-oriented and give incentives for an efficient universal service provision. Whenever necessary for reasons relating to the public interest, Member States may decide that a uniform tariff shall be applied, throughout their national territory and/or cross-border, to services provided at single piece tariff and to other postal items,

the application of a uniform tariff shall not exclude the right of the universal service provider(s) to conclude individual agreements on prices with users,

tariffs shall be transparent and non-discriminatory,

whenever universal service providers apply special tariffs, for example for services for businesses, bulk mailers or consolidators of mail from different users, they shall apply the principles of transparency and non-discrimination with regard both to the tariffs and to the associated conditions. The tariffs, together with the associated conditions, shall apply equally both as between different third parties and as between third parties and universal service providers supplying equivalent services. Any such tariffs shall also be available to users, in particular individual users and small and medium-sized enterprises, who post under similar conditions.’;

Article 14 shall be amended as follows:

paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 shall be replaced by the following:

‘1. Member States shall take the measures necessary to ensure that the accounting of the universal service providers is conducted in accordance with the provisions of this Article.

2. The universal service provider(s) shall keep separate accounts within their internal accounting systems in order to clearly distinguish between each of the services and products which are part of the universal service and those which are not. This accounting separation shall be used as an input when Member States calculate the net cost of the universal service. Such internal accounting systems shall operate on the basis of consistently applied and objectively justifiable cost accounting principles.

3. The accounting systems referred to in paragraph 2 shall, without prejudice to paragraph 4, allocate costs in the following manner:

costs which can be directly assigned to a particular service or product shall be so assigned;

common costs, that is costs which cannot be directly assigned to a particular service or product, shall be allocated as follows:

whenever possible, common costs shall be allocated on the basis of direct analysis of the origin of the costs themselves;

when direct analysis is not possible, common cost categories shall be allocated on the basis of an indirect linkage to another cost category or group of cost categories for which a direct assignment or allocation is possible; the indirect linkage shall be based on comparable cost structures;

when neither direct nor indirect measures of cost allocation can be found, the cost category shall be allocated on the basis of a general allocator computed by using the ratio of all expenses directly or indirectly assigned or allocated, on the one hand, to each of the universal services and, on the other hand, to the other services;

common costs, which are necessary for the provision of both universal services and non-universal services, shall be allocated appropriately; the same cost drivers must be applied to both universal services and non-universal services.’;

paragraph 8 shall be replaced by the following:

‘8. Where a given Member State has not used a financing mechanism for the provision of the universal service, as permitted under Article 7, and where the national regulatory authority is satisfied that none of the designated universal service providers in that Member State is in receipt of State assistance, hidden or otherwise, and that competition in the market is fully effective, the national regulatory authority may decide not to apply the requirements of this Article.’;

the following paragraphs shall be added:

‘9. This Article may, however, be applied to the universal service provider designated before the final date for Full Market Opening as long as no other universal service provider(s) have been designated. The national regulatory authority shall inform the Commission in advance of any such decision.

10. Member States may require those postal service providers which are obliged to contribute to a compensation fund to introduce an appropriate accounting separation to ensure the functioning of the fund.’;

Article 16 shall be amended as follows:

the second indent of the third paragraph shall be replaced by the following:

the European Parliament and the Council in the case of intra-Community cross-border services (see Annex II). Future adjustment of these standards to technical progress or market developments shall be made in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 21(2).’;

the fourth paragraph shall be replaced by the following:

‘Independent performance monitoring shall be carried out at least once a year by external bodies having no links with the universal service providers under standardised conditions to be specified in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 21(2) and shall be the subject of reports published at least once a year.’;

paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 18 shall be replaced by the following:

‘1. In accordance with Article 16, quality standards for intra-Community cross-border services are laid down in Annex II.

2. Where exceptional situations relating to infrastructure or geography so require, the national regulatory authorities may determine exemptions from the quality standards provided for in Annex II. Where national regulatory authorities determine exemptions in this manner, they shall notify the Commission forthwith. The Commission shall submit an annual report of the notifications received during the previous 12 months to the Committee referred to in Article 21 for its information.’;

Article 19 shall be replaced by the following:

DIRECTIVE 2008/6/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 20 February 2008 amending Directive 97/67/EC with regard to the full accomplishment of the internal market of Community postal services ‘ANNEX I