From 22 to 24 November 2021, a meeting of the Postal Operations Council (POC) of the UPU was held, organized via video conferencing.

The event was attended by 35 members of the Postal Operations Council, and in total more than 220 delegates from member countries, as well as observers from international and regional organizations. The meeting was attended by representatives of the Communications Administrations and designated operators from the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, as well as employees of the RCC Executive Committee.

Bishar Hussain, Director General of the UPU International Bureau, and Pascal Cliva, Deputy Director General, addressed the participants with a welcoming speech. The session was chaired by Jean-Paul Forseville, chairman of the POC.

At the beginning of the meeting, the report of the POC Steering Committee was heard and the question of the structure of the Council was considered.

Further, the issue of restrictions related to customs procedures was considered, within the framework of which the proposal of the Republic of Azerbaijan was considered, according to which the sender is responsible for the correct filling of customs forms, and the designated operators are required to inform their customers about the rules for customs clearance of parcels and packages. This proposal, supported by the representatives of the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom, was submitted to the Customs Group for consideration. Also, clarifications on other customs forms were submitted to this group for consideration.

Among other issues, the report on the activities of the Bureau of Standards was considered, an agreement was reached to transfer the discussion of the definitions of postage types and the structure of their rates to the POC working groups, the report on the activities of the Postal Security Group, as well as the progress on the implementation of electronic preliminary information, was discussed. model of global mail, the draft terms of reference for the UPU-Railways Forum was considered and the preliminary work program of Committee 1 was approved. The representative of Russia called for maintaining the inviolability of the postal model in the next cycle.

On November 23, the POC meeting was held within the framework of Committee 2. A US amendment to the UPU Convention Regulations was considered, which was eventually sent for further study to the settlement and regulation group. Further, they discussed Azerbaijan's proposal to apply a single barcode on the parcel and the corresponding label with the address. The proposal was submitted to the Standards Group for study. Azerbaijan's proposal on the possibility of using video recording to confirm the violation of the integrity of the received mail was accepted. At the same time, Azerbaijan’s proposal to reduce the time frame for notification of postal operations was rejected.

Also discussed was the US proposal for the delivery of damaged registered or insured mail, to which the Russian Federation amended. The US proposal was accepted and the Russian amendments were sent to the Settlement Group for further study.

In turn, the Russian Federation came up with amendments to Chile's proposal to pay bills rejected by the UPU settlement system. As a result of the discussion, it was decided to return to this issue in April 2022.

On the final day of the POC, the participants continued to discuss the list of countries subject to force majeure in connection with COVID-19. As a result, a list of 89 countries was approved, consideration of additions to it was transferred to the Quality of Services Group.

The Russian Federation made a proposal to include in the work plan of Committee 2 a systematic analysis of the Regulations of the Convention in order to identify norms that hinder the development of the competitiveness of designated operators. The POC members were invited to lead this work in Russia.

Further work continued in the framework of Committee 4 dealing with payment services. The proposal of Uzbekistan to suspend postal orders that do not contain the necessary information about the payer and the recipient was considered. Following the discussion, it was sent for further study. The same decision was made on the proposal of the Russian Federation on the possibility of issuing translations in the event of a mismatch between the last name, first name or patronymic due to transliteration and similar reasons, if there is no doubt that the addressee receives the translation.

Participants also approved the preliminary work program of Committee 4 and heard a report from the EMC cooperative. Turning to the issues of the Foundation for Quality Management of Services (QMS), the participants were introduced to Nugzar Bregvadze (Georgia), a new member of the Steering Committee of the QMS. The participants approved the creation of a special account for financing the least developed countries.

Finally, the UPU Program and Budget for 2022 was considered, amounting to about 39 million Swiss francs.

The next POC meeting is scheduled for March 28 - April 1, 2022, but the date may change as it falls on Ramadan and the representatives of the Arab countries have expressed objections to this.