Recital 12 Postal service providers

Postal service providers as defined in Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council(⁷)Directive 97/67/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 December 1997 on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service (OJ L 15, 21.1.1998, p. 14)., including providers of courier services, should be subject to this Directive if they provide at least one of the steps in the postal delivery chain, in particular clearance, sorting, transport or distribution of postal items, including pick-up services, while taking account of the degree of their dependence on network and information systems means: an electronic communications network as defined in Article 2, point (1), of Directive (EU) 2018/1972; any device or group of interconnected or related devices, one or more of which, pursuant to a programme, carry out automatic processing of digital data; or digital data stored, processed, retrieved or transmitted by elements covered under points (a) and (b) for the purposes of their operation, use, protection and maintenance;. Transport services that are not undertaken in conjunction with one of those steps should be excluded from the scope of postal services.