In 2003 the original proposal was rejected by the European Parliament following lengthy and often bitter negotiations. Last year, outgoing European transport commissioner, Loyola de Palacio attempted to reintroduce the notion of cargo self-handling at Europe’s ports in a redrafted directive proposal. Again, the move drew sharp criticism, from dockworkers’ unions; from the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO); and from the Federation of European Private Port Operators (FEPORT), of which Cecilia Eckelmann-Battistello is president.<\/p>\n
In June, the EC presented its latest directive proposal to MEPs.<\/p>\n
Stakeholders, including FEPORT, gave their views on the text which PS will be reporting on. Meanwhile, here is a summary of FEPORT’s published comment:<\/p>\n
10 GOOD REASONS TO DRAW 1 CONCLUSION The European port market is efficient and competition is the rule of the game for port operators. This is clearly demonstrated by the ease by which shipping lines and shippers can change terminal operator and port of call. Moreover handling charges are lower in Europe than in Asia or the US and have further declined over the past 10 years.<\/p>\n
1. Therefore, FEPORT sees no immediate need to introduce a new legal framework to further enhance the already existing strong competition and high efficiency in the European port market. The European Commission focuses on market access and proposes severe and unbalanced measures.<\/p>\n
2. The impact upon existing authorisations is unacceptable and cannot be justified from a legal point of view. Existing authorisations should be excluded from any ex-post re-tendering.<\/p>\n
Such authorisations have been obtained with a legal basis embedded in current law and rules. A new directive should not turn down the legitimate rights of existing operators.<\/p>\n
3. In addition to competition within a port intensive competition exists in the European port market between ports. By ignoring this reality and even proposing re-tendering in view of a maximisation of terminal handlers within every single port, the proposal in its present wording can only impact in a detrimental way on the high efficiency and competitiveness of EU port operators.<\/p>\n
4. Several measures, including shortened durations and an insufficient compensation framework, introduce legal uncertainty and a significant deterioration of the investment climate.<\/p>\n
5. The chaos to be expected during the very short transition period will further aggravate the situation.<\/p>\n
6. Moreover, at present it is not demonstrated that the proposed legal framework is appropriate and relevant. There is even no evidence that it is actually needed.<\/p>\n
7. There is also no evidence that measures are proportional, have no disproportionate adverse effects, are taken at the right policy level, minimise the administrative burden and take into account the legitimate diversity of EU ports.<\/p>\n
8. Legal experts indicate a long list of weaknesses and deficiencies both in wording and textual consistency.<\/p>\n
9. Relevant aspects such as state aid guidelines and transparency requirements are only mentioned in the margin of the proposal. It is however in these areas that a potential constructive contribution of EU port legislation is most likely to be expected. State aid guidelines should even precede any market access legislation on the EU port market.<\/p>\n
10. The present proposal cannot guarantee, as it should, that the relevant basic principles of EU law making are respected, nor that it will contribute positively to the future development of the vital European port sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Few would argue with the seemingly reasonable aims of the ECs port policy – see box below. But the directive proposal on market access to port services or the ports package, has created a furore in all quarters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-concessions-investments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport-congress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}