the EU commission has adopted new guidelines on the marine cabotage



Today the EU commission has introduced new guidelines with respect to the interpretation of relative regulations 3577/92 to the supply of services of marine cabotage inside a State of the EU, with the objective to relatively offer to the competent authorities more certainty to the award of contracts of public service and to the imposition of the obligations of public service.

"The home market of the services of marine transport - it has emphasized the vice president of the EU commission, Siim Kallas, responsible for transport - is important for the results of the European economy and for the quality of the life and the pr0sperity of the marine regions. The authorities of the Member States need clear rules on as guaranteeing connections adapted with the peripheral islands and regions that depend to a great degree from the marine transport".

The adopted interpretative communication today from the EU commission supplies among other things indications in the field of application of the free performance of the services in the field of the marine cabotage, on which services they are subject to the regulations, on the procedure of award of contracts of public service and on their duration, the relative norms to the crews of the ships employed in activity of marine cabotage and on the application of the regulations (EC) n 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and the relative Council to the services publics of transport of passengers for railroad and on the road and that it repeals the regulations of Council (the EEC) n 1191/69 and 1107/70 relative ones to the services of marine cabotage. Moreover it includes transitory dispositions for Croatia.

The main variation brought from the new interpretation of the regulations introduced from the EU commission regards the duration of the contracts of public service that - it has clarified Brussels - must have a duration limited to the aim to allow a regular and open market rating. In its interpretative communication of the 2003 EU commission it had authorized contracts of public service until a duration six-year-old. From the 2003 - it has found the Commission - experience it has demonstrated that in some cases the limit six-year-old outside places contest shipping second which such duration is too much short in order to recover the carried out investments in order to exercise the service, while meanwhile contracts of short duration can discourage the shipowners more carrying out investments consisting, so hindering the innovation and possible improvements in the quality of the services. Therefore the Commission has decided to modify its precedence interpretation in order to allow a greater flexibility in the definition of the duration of contracts of public service. The new lines guide indicate that contracts of public service of a duration until 12 years are able to satisfy proportionality requirement, on condition that the investments in ships or infrastructures are justified by objective criteria as the necessity to for example recover the investments carried out in the management of the service of marine cabotage in normal operating conditions ().

Today, moreover, the EU commission has introduced its fifth biennial relation on the free performance of the services of marine cabotage between States EU, services - Brussels - that they have been almost all liberalized from on January 1°, 1999, with the Greek market has remembered - that it has been between the last ones to turn out partially protected - that is opened to the competition from on November 1°, 2002 (Croatia - that takes part since last July of the EU - is the only Member States in which can still be applied, until next 31 December, the temporary exception to some dispositions of the regulations). Regarding the evolution of the market, the Commission has explained that until the 2007 market of the marine cabotage in the EU it has recorded a continuous increment of the volumes of goods and the number of passengers transported in the various nations, while from the 2008 a remarkable decrease has been recorded because of the impact of the economic crisis. The last relationship per year evidences that, as in the years precedence, the largest market for the traffic cargo is those of the United Kingdom and Spain, everyone with about 80 million tons, followed from that of Italy with about 60 million tons; regarding the passengers, Greece per year anticipates the greater volume of traffic with 60 million passengers continuation from Italy with 40 million passengers.