Peter wrote:
They have said they won’t. Vodafone UK for example is not treating UK travel to Europe as “roaming”. And it has not done so for ages, charging Switzerland at the EU rate.
We’ll see. I’m not optimistic.
Looking at the example posted by gallois, I can well imagine Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom and Free might charge roaming plus 100% in the UK 
The only positive thing is that the UK coast is too far away to enable N. French people to accidentally connect to UK networks. This tactic is used within former Yugoslavia to generate “enhanced billing by accident”.
The future probably depends on whether the company has a UK presence too. For example Vodafone does, so they would get bad PR shafting Brits in Europe. Similarly Orange has a UK presence (merged with T-Mobile).
Peter wrote:
€20 to €90 is going some… No; this is somebody taking the p1ss. The UK joining the EU didn’t change postal prices
All of geographical Europe is in the same international postal zone, whether EU or not EU. It absolutely is someone taking the p1ss.
The USA is now in its own zone because the Trump administration thought it was too cheap for China to mail packets/parcels to the USA, and threatened to leave the UPU unless they could agree the USA could be in its own high cost international mail zone.
Peter wrote:
They have said they won’t.
You might wish to review the latest info on that.
alioth wrote:
The USA is now in its own zone because the Trump administration thought it was too cheap for China to mail packets/parcels to the USA, and threatened to leave the UPU unless they could agree the USA could be in its own high cost international mail zone.
Ah, thanks for that, explains it. No prizes for guessing my thoughts about that…..
The USPS survives only by delivering vast amounts of advertising, now its primary product, but few like it given the need to find a personal letter like a needle in a haystack of junk mail. The path of least resistance for increasing USPS revenues was to increase international postage rates.
There is relatively little ‘real’ domestic mail in the US now, although they do seem to be able to compete OK where there is no electronic alternative, e.g. small parcels delivered quickly by priority mail. That’s a bit of a niche and UPS has long since taken the market for anything larger and heavier.
Chronopost is not the post office. It is only a courrier company. So nothing to do with postal zone or UPU.
They deal mainly in packages. They made a commercial decision. and they lost a customer.
@Malibuflyer wrote:
that is the beauty of democracy: Every country gets the leaders it deserves.
That’s a very fair point.
Incidentally, did you vote for UVDL as EU President, or for some other candidate?
Jacko wrote:
Incidentally, did you vote for UVDL as EU President, or for some other candidate?
That is a complex question, but to tell a long story short: Yes, of course!
The longer story:
First of all, there is no such thing as an “EU president”. Accordingly, UvdL is not an “EU president” but the “president of the EU commission” – something completely different.
The commission (and hence its president) is an administrative body. And as in almost all democracies of the world, administrative roles are not directly elected, but they are determined by the elected representatives – it would be quite impractical if you had to vote for ten thousands of administrative staff in your country.
And for the elected officials that had to decide on the commission and its president (largely the government of Germany and the EU parliament) I did vote or could have voted. So that was perfectly in line with democratic principles.
If there is a question on the democratic legitimation of UvdL, it is interestingly only about the UK: As she has been elected before the Brexit, the UK members of EP and therefore the UK voters have had a say, although they are no longer part of the EU now. Therefore you could argue that the commission should have been reelected after Brexit.
Interesting.
Certainly some of the lines are becoming blurred. Plenty of what the EC has done and said lately looks more like executive as opposed to administrative action.
Naturally most administrative leaders crave more executive power.
As an example, the senior paid employee of a private golf club in the UK is generally known as the Secretary. They run the club on a day to day basis, under direction from a board/committee of elected members. They have no power to make policy or decide strategy. Increasingly though you find that they prefer to title themselves ‘General Manager’ or some such and act as though they do have executive power. The Secretary at one of my clubs even describes himself as CEO on his LinkedIn profile!
I wonder if the same phenomenon is at play with the EC?
