Danish postal service says goodbye to letters

Brussels – With the digitisation of public administration and the spread and development of online communication platforms, snail mail in Europe has now become an endangered species. Noting this in the harshest way was Denmark: after four hundred years of handling mail, the national postal service Postnord has announced this morning (March 6) that it will no longer deliver any letters from the beginning of next year, focusing its efforts on parcels from Danes.

Kim Pedersen, executive director of Postnord, said that “in order to create a sustainable service, we have to adapt, and unfortunately that means we have to say goodbye to many of our colleagues.” The company, which can no longer afford the cost of maintaining the mail, has been forced to remove more than 1,500 mailboxes and lay off 1,500 staff. In fact, from 2000 to 2024, the flow of letters in the country plummeted by 90 per cent. Germany’s Deutsche post service has also already announced the layoff of 8,000 employees. At the same time, digitisation also threatens Britain’s Royal Mail, which is considering sending letters every other day in an effort to stem losses.

Last year, as part of the liberalisation initiative undertaken by the Danish government, Postnord was relieved of the obligation to take over the universal postal service, and this paved the way for today’s decision. This could also be the fate of Poste Italiane: last September, CEO Matteo Del Fante stated that there might be the conditions for Poste Italiane to decide not to renew the contract that binds it to the universal service. A statement that does not seem altogether surprising when one considers that in the province of Turin alone in fifteen years snail mail has declined by 60 per cent.