EU assembly adopt plan to open up postal markets

BRUSSELS, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The European Union's 88 billion euro ($130.8 billion) mail markets will be opened up to full competition from the start of 2011 under plans adopted by the bloc's assembly on Thursday.

The European Parliament sealed a 15-year long process of injecting competition into national postal services by prising open the final protected sector -- letters weighing up to 50 grams.

Mail above that weight is fully liberalised.

"So far, the liberalisation of the postal market has been a success story," said Andrej Vizjak, economy minister for EU president Slovenia. Slovenia holds the EU's rotating presidency.

"New players have entered the market, new market opportunities have emerged not only for new market entrants but also for the incumbents. And for users, new services have been developed," Vizjak told the assembly.

The measure adopted on Thursday has already been agreed with EU states, who have joint say and will formally rubberstamp it in coming weeks.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Marcin Grajewski)