Post office future in EU hands

1:07pm Thursday 22nd November 2007

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Regarding the closure of our treasured post offices, ( Citizen , November 15).

Sadly, you can sign as many petitions as you want, write to your MP, shout in Gordon Brown's ear or riot outside Westminster, but it won't change the fact that Article 88 of the European Union's Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 obliged our government to seek the permission of the EU Commission to give state aid to the post office.

After lengthy negotiations in 2003, we were allowed to do this to a maximum of £150m for three years.

Because our government agreed to axe 3,000 sub post offices to meet the requirements of the EU's competition rules, the Competition Commissioner agreed to allow the subsidy to run from April 2006 to March 2008. There could be no better illustration of how we are now governed from Brussels.

Val Cowell, Northwood Way, Poulton