ECSA, ICS and WSC support the proposal to extend the exemption for category to the consortia of marine transport of line



The shipowners have expressed their consent to the recent proposal of the EU commission to extend for others five years the exemption for category to the consortia of marine transport of line ( on 27 February 2014). The European Community Shipowners Associations (ECSA), the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the World Shipping Council (WSC) has manifested their positive opinion answering to the EU commission in the within of the started public consultation in recent days from Brussels.

"We receive with great favor - the general secretary of the ECSA, Patrick Verhoeven has explained - the fact that the Commission shares the opinion of the shipowners who the exemption for category in confronts of the consortia would have to be extensive. The reasons for the maintenance of the exemption for specific category for the field are valid anchor today, above all if the many difficulties are considered that the section of the marine transport will have to cross. We must guarantee a clear and effective guideline for operators of line and avoid any legal uncertainty that the suspension of the exemption for category would involve".

ECSA, ICS and WSC in fact have evidenced that today the industry of the marine transport of line is found in difficulty and is up against a chronic excess of ability and with an excessive cost of the fuel, that is doubled between 2007 and 2013 and that are previewed will still increase more with the previewed decrease of the maximum sulfur tenor in the fuel that will come down from 3.5% to 0.5% in 2020 or in 2025. The situation - they have emphasized the three associations - is aggravated by the fact that continuous the total question to being anemic.

ECSA, ICS and WSC have found that, with such perspectives, to the companies of navigation of the field other possibility that does not remain that to cut the costs. The marine transport of line in fact has oriented towards economies of scale having ordered more and more large ships that can reduce unitary costs. However - they have specified the three associations - in order to benefit from these economies of scale the ships they must be completely loaded, what that in the current phase of excess of hold offer can reveal an arduous enterprise. According to ECSA, ICS and WSC, the agreements and the practical ones agreed between the marine companies of line in the within of the consortia can therefore alleviate the burdens that the field must support.

"To this point and in this moment - it has concluded Verhoeven - to interrupt the exemption for category for the line consortia it would constitute a not necessary complication for the field of the marine transports, as the exemption regulations up to now have had a good outcome and have turned out useful are for the loaders that of vital importance for the carriers".