Reform of the Romanian postal service is undergoing

Yassen Vakashinski, BNR, August 18, 2025

Yassen Vakashinski: From the lighthouse in Shabla, we will move very close to neighboring Romania. While Bulgarian Post employees are about to learn how to exchange leva for euros, their colleagues at the Romanian Post have boasted that they have already reached the level of private courier companies in terms of speed, quality, and revenue. How true this is and whether the reform of the Romanian postal service is productive, we will find out in a few minutes from our colleague at Radio Bulgaria, Vladimir Mitev.

But first, let’s listen to the survey conducted by trainee reporter Momchil Draganov on how satisfied Bulgarians are with the services of the Bulgarian Post.

Momchil Draganov: When you send or receive parcels, which do you prefer—the Bulgarian postal service or courier companies?

Courier companies, because they have more locations and are more convenient….

…Because it’s faster and safer. I have no experience with the Bulgarian postal service….

…It’s something urgent, so I prefer courier services in these cases. But the Bulgarian postal service is a classic institution and, in my opinion, a country cannot exist without a postal service.

… I consider them more reliable. Many times, my parcels have been lost in the Bulgarian Post Office or have not arrived at their destination when I was expecting them……

Because my parcels don’t get lost and because they are more responsive.

Have you had such cases of lost parcels?

I have had such cases with the Bulgarian Post. Somebody sent me a parcel from Italy and it never arrived…

…Not parcels, more like letters, etc….

…Well, you file a complaint with the courier company and they undertake to cover the shipping costs….

…No, generally no problems. I’ve used them often. And the post office… I remember using it once abroad—I was sending some documents. It was quite cumbersome, there was a lot of red tape. They’re a bit more complicated from a bureaucratic point of view…

… I have received letters from abroad, when various friends sent me greetings. When I ordered something from websites and had it sent via “Bulgarian Post,” it was left somewhere outside the mailbox and then I found it opened and scattered in the hallway…

… There have been cases when I ordered a parcel and they couldn’t find it, I went three times and then the man gave up trying…

How do you think Bulgarian Post should develop to reach the level of courier services?

… Perhaps, first of all, they should be a little more public and organize a campaign or several campaigns to promote the fact that they are on the market and that they offer services. Also, digitization is very important these days, so they could think about a mobile app for easy access to services, because when customers and consumers receive and send parcels, it is essential for them to be able to track in real time when they were sent, where their parcels are, when they will be received…

… If they want to compete with these private companies, they could open additional branches, additional locations where they can receive shipments, but they don’t…

Questionnaire from our trainee reporter Momcil Draganov, and now I say “Good morning” to my colleague from Radio Bulgaria, Vladimir Mitev. I got that right, didn’t I?

Yes, hello! Greetings to everyone from Brașov.

How is the weather and how is it in general today in Brașov?

It’s a little stormy and cloudy, but overall it’s very nice. The city is full of tourists.

Two days ago, there was even an impressive concert with a band playing percussion instruments in the center. I recommend Brașov to anyone who has the opportunity to travel north from Sofia. I think Brașov will appeal to many people.

It’s a good invitation and anyone can accept it. It’s August, the holiday month, and it’s the right time for travel and rest. We won’t need a courier or the post office to get to Brașov. We’ll have to manage on our own.

However, the main topic of our conversation is the postal services in Romania. I assume you heard the survey a few minutes ago.

Someone called it “classic” that a country has postal services. Is it classic in Romania too?

Yes, I heard the introduction to this topic.

I think the Romanian Post is not much different from the Bulgarian one, if we go by the complaints or criticisms we receive. Here, too, people say that the work is quite slow. There is a lot of paperwork.

These are the opinions of Romanians I have spoken to recently.

But the Romanian Post Office administration is boasting.

They are trying to implement a reform, which already has some initial measures in place.

Part of this is reducing the number of employees. From 25,000 last year, there are now 20,000 left.

The management also seems ambitious. You mentioned the post office’s ambitions in the courier sector. As far as I know, it currently has 3-5% of the courier services market. There is a desire to reach 30%.

Many people are skeptical. They wonder what the postal service can do better than courier companies to capture such a market share.

At the same time the managers talk about investing in technology for parcel delivery. Digitization is also underway. The survey also mentioned that it would be good to have more advanced digitization. This is also the direction we are moving in here.

But the reform is still in its infancy. The postal service management, which I said was ambitious, is trying to promote any success, no matter how small, to show that something is happening. And perhaps that is why we ended up on this topic. Because last year, the Romanian postal service recorded a net profit of €14 million. So there are certain activities that generate the necessary revenue.

That’s for sure. And perhaps the question that was raised a minute ago – how can they become more productive and how can they overcome the competition from private courier companies.

Perhaps because the postal service, if we go back to the word “classic,” has developed a system over the years, has buildings, offices, a way of working that, in my opinion, surpasses private companies in some respects, especially those that are just starting out or have even less experience.

That’s right.

Everyone I have spoken to acknowledges that the post office has this advantage – over 5,000 offices across the country. This means that it can deliver not only parcels but also services to small and remote communities. And, in fact, the post office generates a considerable part of its revenue from delivering pensions and social benefits to the population.

In addition, it is used for communication between state institutions. It also has the possibility of renting out its buildings. You also mentioned that, as the heir to the socialist postal service, it has a lot of real estate that it can operate.

In other words, there are various possibilities for generating income. The problem is that the post office is basically called a “post office” because it provides postal services. And these activities, which are more financial or rental-related, or the fact that the post office can print stamps—these things are a bit more secondary to standard postal work. And in this regard, I still think that more significant results are expected.

Many people are skeptical. As you also noticed in the survey in Bulgaria, there are established opinions that courier companies are more efficient.

The largest courier company, Fan Curier, has five times fewer employees than the Romanian post office, but at the same time has a turnover of hundreds of millions of lei. So, obviously, efficiency is also a challenge. The management of the Romanian Post says that, for now, it is satisfied that, with 5,000 fewer employees, as they say, they are actually doing more work. That is, they are also working on training and developing the skills of their staff to make them more efficient.

Well, this is probably the big problem of the two mega-structures in Romania and Bulgaria—there are too many employees, and efficiency and flexibility are not as high as among their competitors.

The Romanian Post Office has already taken some steps, as I said, five thousand people have been laid off. In my opinion, there is a general problem with the postal service around the world. Quite simply, technology is evolving and the postal service needs to adapt in some way to the technologies we now have. The private sector, including courier companies, seems to have more freedom to build on completely new practices and infrastructures. It remains to be seen whether there are good managers who can distribute the resources available to these behemoths correctly. Because in both Romania and Bulgaria, the postal service has a fairly large infrastructure, with offices, etc.

Let’s unite around this maxim—good management and the efficient use of modern technologies and possibilities—so that these behemoths can become faster, more flexible, and more efficient.

Yes, and of course, we will follow the progress of the reform in Romania, which is still in its early stages.

And from what I can see of the management style here, even small progress will be immediately announced and spread.

We look forward to it. Thank you to our colleague from Radio Bulgaria, Vladimir Mitev. Stay with us.

Photo: The reform in Romanian Post is associated with the name of the general director of the Romanian Post, Valentin Ștefan (source: YouTube)

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