PPP and Bpost Agreement Reached to Avoid Legal Action: Details Revealed

The issue is related to the newspaper contract. The federal government decided at the end of last year not to award a newspaper contract for the coming years. PPP came out on top in the tender and was therefore entitled to tens of millions of euros in subsidies. The current newspaper contract has been extended by six months, and Bpost will receive a subsidy of 75 million euros for that.

PPP started legal proceedings before the corporate court in Brussels to challenge that subsidy. According to the company, this is illegal state aid and the aid must be stopped, under a penalty of 494,000 euros per day.

READ IN. PPP takes Bpost and Belgian state to court for “illegal state aid”

The Belgian state was also sued by PPP and that lawsuit was also dismissed, the company confirmed on Wednesday. The government was not involved in the agreement, according to the spokesperson of the responsible minister Petra De Sutter.

With the agreement between PPP and Bpost, both parties also want to “give energy to the development of their activities and especially to the discussions with publishers on the conditions for the distribution of newspapers and magazines from 1 July 2024”, he said. the release. It is not yet known who will be responsible for distribution where in the future.

READ IN. Why can a private PPP player deliver newspapers so cheaply and what does that mean for Bpost? “It is not unknown that other services will also become more expensive”