Spanish ports await €150m hit

Puertos del Estado’s Mr Llorca made the statement at a meeting with the presidents of Spain’s port authorities. He did not reveal how he had come to that figure, saying only that it would roughly offset the social liabilities linked to laying off surplus stevedores.

In September, Spanish stevedoring unions are to ask the International Stevedoring Council to draw up a common battle plan to counter attempts by the Luxembourg Tribunal to force change on the Spanish system.

Antonio Goya, head of the coordinated port unions said, “We are not contemplating a negative judgment in respect of the Spanish stevedoring model. We believe that our system is sufficiently robust and powerful to ensure that the outcome of the trial is a positive one.”

In the meantime, the latest attempts to make progress on the signing of a collective bargaining agreement with stevedores in Valencia have made little progress, although the companies involved say that they want to restart negotiations before the summer.