It is one of the most explosive economic dossiers of the year: the renewal of the contract for distributing newspapers and magazines from 2024 to 2028. After criticism had been expressed for some time by politicians and some digital news media about the enormous subsidies that the government hands out for the busing of daily newspapers, the concession also ended up in a scandalous atmosphere at the end of 2022 when Bpost fired its CEO Dirk Tirez. According to an audit carried out by the postal company, Bpost, the publishers DPG Media and Mediahuis, and the distributor PPP had made illegal market agreements to ensure that the order would largely remain in the hands of Bpost.
The De Croo government, which had previously reduced the size of the new contract from 175 to 125 million euros per year, subsequently stopped the current tender. A new call from the FPS Economy yielded three candidates: Bpost, the Belgian distributor PPP and the French distributor Proximy. The FPS Economy now announces that the evaluation at administrative level has been completed and the file is at policy level. “We cannot provide further details at this time,” it said.
De Tijd hears from several sources that the file will be discussed at the core cabinet on Monday and that the verdict threatens to be a dampener for Bpost. After all, the recommendation of the FPS Economy is to award the distribution of newspapers to PPP and the distribution of magazines to Proximy.
2023-11-25 04:31:00
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