The Relationship Between the State Enterprise for Postal, Telegraph and Telephone Services and the State in the Netherlands in Historical Perspective Mila Davids • Erasmus UniversityRotterdam In recent years, in many countriesnumerous reforms have taken place with regardto the public sector. It is beyond doubtthat the role of the private sector increased. This phenomenon occured not only in the United States and the United Kingdom, but also in other European countries including the Netherlands. The change in the relationship between public enterprise and the stateis, however, not new. It has been a continuing process sincethe establishment of public enterprises. A historicalanalysis of this process is thereforeimportant. Thispaper focuses onthe Post, Telegraph and Telephone Company (PTT) 2. The goal of this paper is not only to shed light on the fascinating history of the State Enterprise for Postal, Telegraph andTelephone Services in the Netherlands and its changing relationship with the government,but also to explore the significance of the variousmotives and arguments which led to the establishment and to the recent denationalisation of the PTI'. In 1989 the Dutch PTT was denationalised and becamethe Royal PTT Netherlands NV (Koninklijke PTT Nederland, KPN), a private joint-stock company. All the shares were heldby the state. The first instalment of shares was sold on the stock exchange in June 1994. The recent developments of the PTT will not be discussed here,but an analysis will be made of the past relationship between the PTT and the state.After a shortintroduction to the relevantaspects of Dutch public enterprises we concentrate foremost on the PTT. We begin by examining how different divisions of the PTT came to be government owned, andhow the Post, Telegraph andTelephony became the PTT. Subsequently, the tMy thanks to Dr. G. Hogesteeger andDrs.R. Van Hoesel for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 2The Post Office Savings Bank and Postal Cheque and Giro Service arenotaddressed in this study. BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC HISTORY, Volume twenty-four, no. 1, Fall 1995. Copyright ¸1995 by theBusiness History Conference. ISSN0849-6825. 194