BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The reform of the Postal Act could relax the obligation to deliver letters as quickly as possible. So far, 80 percent of letters must arrive on the next working day. On Thursday, a key points paper from the German Ministry of Economics was published, calling such a requirement "hardly helpful." It should be adjusted, it says. At the same time, however, pressure is to be exerted so that letter delivery does not drag on endlessly. In extreme cases, Deutsche Post could face fines in the future - if the ideas contained in the paper are adopted in the upcoming legislative reform.

If the 80 percent requirement were either lowered or abolished, the Post would have less time pressure and many letters would not land in the mailbox the next day, but the day after that. The paper is, in a sense, a basis for discussion to kick-start the legislative process. A first draft bill could be presented in the summer. What the legal rules will look like in the end is still completely open.

The paper reveals that a requirement for longer transit times is to be tightened. Currently, 95 percent of letters must reach the addressee the day after next. Such a requirement could be raised - either in relation to the day after next after the letter is posted or in relation to the third day after posting.

With these considerations, the ministry is reacting to the fact that time is often no longer a factor when it comes to receiving letters, as people settle urgent written matters with mails or chat messages. The Postal Act was last fundamentally revised in 1999 - at a time when letters were much more important than they are today.

The tightening of the requirement for longer transit times is intended to ensure that miseries like last year's do not happen again: Due to staffing problems, the postal service delivered letters and parcels much later than usual in some places. This led to a wave of complaints to the Federal Network Agency.

In response to these problems, the regulatory authority called for a sanction option. In the future, it wants to use fines or periodic penalty payments to increase the pressure on Deutsche Post to get a better grip on its business. The key issues paper now talks about "effective ordering and sanctioning powers" for the network agency./wdw/DP/jha