* Improved quality of service: The Postal Directive contributed to improving the quality of service both for domestic and cross-border mail, this has harmonised quality of service levels throughout the Community.

[34] TS14014 - Postal services - Hybrid mail - Document type definitions for customer to operator: a common set of default tags, EN13850 - Postal services - measurement of transit time of end to end services for single piece priority and first class mail and EN13724 - Postal Services - Aperture of private letter boxes and letter plates - Requirements and test methods.

* Definition of quality of service targets both for domestic and cross-border mail;

To achieve this it set quality of service targets for cross border mail (85% for D+3 and 97% for D+5 for the fastest standard category of service) and required Member States to define national targets compatible with the Community cross-border targets.

– (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to make five brief observations. The first is to thank all of those who worked so hard to achieve this final outcome: the specialists and technical experts whom we invited and those who wrote and e-mailed us with their studies and opinions, the coordinators of the political groups and the Members of the European Parliament, the staff of our committee, who provided high quality support for our work and the rapporteur, Gerhard Schmid, who has produced an outstanding report and provided evidence once again of his great qualities as a human being and as a politician.

A good example of such an improvement is the quality of service for cross-border priority mail that have improved from 84% delivery in D+3 to 91% delivery in D+3 over the period 1997 to 1999.