L 56/76 Official Journal of the European Union 24.2.2004 COMMISSION DECISION of 23 October 2003 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 81 of the EC Treaty and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement Case COMP/C/38.170 — REIMS II renotification (notified under document number C(2003) 3892) (Only the Spanish, Danish, German, Greek, English, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Finnish and Swedish texts are authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2004/139/EC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Com- munity, Having regard to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, Having regard to Council Regulation No 17 of 6 February 1962, First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty(!), as last amended by Regulation (EC) No 1/ 2003 (), and in particular Articles 2, 6 and 8 thereof, Having regard to the application for negative clearance and the notification with a view to an exemption submitted pursuant to Articles 2 and 4 of Regulation No 17 on 18 June 2001, Having regard to the Commission decision of 14 April 2003 to initiate proceedings in this case, Having regard to the summary of the application and notifi- cation published pursuant to Article 19(3) of Regulation No 17 (), After consulting the Advisory Committee on Restrictive Prac- tices and Dominant Positions, Having regard to the final report of the Hearing Officer in this case (%), Whereas: 1. INTRODUCTION (),  On 18 June 2001, the REIMS II (remuneration of mandatory deliveries of cross-border mails) Agreement was notified to the Commission with a view to obtaining (") () () () 4 J 13, 21.2.1962, p. 204/62. JL1,4.1.2003,p. 1. J C 94, 23.4.2003, p. 3. ] C 48, 24.2.2004. 000 negative clearance pursuant to Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty and Article 53(1) of the EEA Agreement or an exemption pursuant to Article 81(3) of the EC Treaty and Article 53(3) of the EEA Agreement, upon the expiry of the exemption granted by the Commission in its decision of 15 September 1999 (the 1999 exemption decision) (°). (2)  The REIMS II Agreement is the instrument by which certain public postal operators (PPOs) (6) collectively determine terminal dues. Terminal dues are the remuner- ation that PPOs pay each other for the delivery of incoming cross-border mail. The receiving PPO is remunerated by the sending operator for the delivery of the latter’s cross-border mail. (3) In the Agreement, terminal dues are expressed as a percentage of domestic tariffs in the receiving country. The original REIMS II Agreement was first notified to the Commission in 1997. It received an exemption in 1999. According to the original REIMS II-Agreement, terminal dues were to increase over a transitional period until they reached a maximum of 80 % of domestic tariffs in 2001. In the 1999 Exemption Decision, however, the Commission only exempted the Agreement until the end of 2001 and limited the exemption to a level of terminal dues not higher than 70 % of domestic tariffs. (°) Commission Decision 1999/695/EC in Case No COMP/[36.748 — REIMS II) (OJ L 275, 26.10.1999, p. 17). (6) PPOs are corporations or government departments with the primary obligation of providing universal postal services across the national territory, often at a unitary price. They are also obliged to provide international postal services passing international mail to PPOs in other countries for distribution abroad and delivering incoming international mail. In the context of the notified Agreement, PPO refers to both public and private postal operators which are subject to a universal delivery service obligation.