On the day when MEPs are due to debate the controversial Fleckenstein Report \u2013 a proposal that the influential think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, argues will \u2018threaten the UK ports industry\u2019 – delegates will take their fight to the European Parliament amid concerns over the potential adverse impact on ports and port workers.<\/p>\n
James Cooper, chief executive of ABP and chairman of the UK Major Ports Group, said: \u201cPrivately-financed ports are engines of growth and they will be underminded by this new EU ports regulation if adopted.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the regulation claims to promote competition, the effect will be to prevent privately-financed ports operating as fully commercial businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ambiguity in the current text is unhelpful as it creates uncertainty and puts essential future investment, growth and jobs at risk. It is simply not clear how this regulation will add value to European ports,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
His concerns are shared by the free-market think-tank, the Centre for Policy Studies. It points to the thriving nature of the UK port industry. Productivity is 1.3 times higher than the UK average, investment is running at \u00a3400m a year and the industry supports nearly 350,000 jobs around the country. It also highlights that 75% of the UK\u2019s largest ports are privatised \u2013 and therefore receive no tax payer subsidy – compared with only 20% elsewhere in the EU.<\/p>\n
In its economic bulletin number 74 issued on 3rd March, the think-tank warns that the \u2018proposed regulation intervention poses serious risk to the industry\u2019 and concludes that the UK government and MEPs should resist any attempt to allow further state subsidies of EU ports, insist on the regulation not applying to the UK and, as a minimum, ensure the introduction of an amendment that would remove privately financed ports from the scope of the regulation.<\/p>\n
This amendment has the support of the British Ports Association (BPA). Andrew Moffat CBE, chair of the BPA, said: \u201cIf MEPs can not reject the PSR, we urge them to support an amendment which would clearly and unambiguously remove private financed ports from the scope of the regulation, in a way that is entirely consistent with EU law.<\/p>\n
Concerns over the wholescale adoption of the proposals are echoed elsewhere in Europe. The Federation of European Private Ports (FEPORT) has issued a statement also calling for MEPs to vote for exemptions.<\/p>\n
Lamia Kerdjoudj-Belkaid, secretary general of FEPORT, said: \u201cWe particularly support the exclusion of cargo handling from chapter II, organisation of port services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competitiveness of the cargo handling industry is thus recognised, particularly in a context where efforts to respond to customers\u2019 demands are so significant in terms of investments and continuous adaptation,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The vote comes as a new survey conducted by independent pollster, ComRes, reveals that the majority of adults (66%) from across Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Poland, would prefer to see their own national governments in charge of commercial sea ports. Support for national government control was strongest in the UK (74%) and Germany (71%).<\/p>\n
Among the BPA\u2019s key concerns are that private ports may lose freedom to set port charges; private ports may be forced to put their services out to tender; commercial confidentiality may be threatened and that the regulation opens the door to further unfair competition.<\/p>\n
MEPs will vote on the legislation on 8th March following a debate the previous evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Representatives from the dock workers union, Unite, and Associated British Ports (ABP) have travelled to Strasbourg to urge members of the European Parliament to reject the European Commission\u2019s proposal for a new port services regulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9726,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions\/9726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9724"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}