ECSA, the project of reform of the legislation EU in harbour matter are getting bogged down



The project of reform of the legislation of the European Union in harbour matter is by now getting bogged down. It supports the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) remembering that last March eurodeputato Knut Fleckenstein, reporter on the proposal of the relative EU commission to regulations on the access at the market of the harbour services and on the transparency financial institution of the ports, has announced that the legislative procedure on these topics would be suspended until the formation of the new next European Parliament to the held European elections to May ( on 13 March 2014). The association of the European shipowners has explained that from then the States of the EU they have discussed the proposal about the Commission in the within of the Council of Ministers, than the Italian presidency of the Council aimed to find an agreement with the European Parliament in first reading and that the argument is going quickly in this direction.

However the ECSA complains that, to the aim to reach this objective, the text currently to the examination of the Council is slowly moving towards the initial position of the Parliament that - it has found the association - in its turn was a watered version of the proposal of the EU commission. According to the ECSA, the attention of the Member States it is being centralized exclusively on the exclusion from the regulations of the services of cargo handling and the passengers, while the exclusion of the pilotage services continues to being uncertain; moreover the deliberations of the Council are being concentrated on the fact that the regulations would have to be only applied to the main ports of the EU, that is to the ports that take part of Core Network of the infrastructural net TRY. "In the light of these developments - it has denounced the ECSA - the field of application of the regulations could be drastically reduced transforming the reform of the ports of the EU in little more than an empty shell".

"It is extremely discouraging - the general secretary of the ECSA, Patrick Verhoeven has asserted - to see the legislators of the EU who gradually empty the proposal of the Commission, already insufficient of any substance for the community of the users of the ports. The opportunity of a meaningful reform of the ports of the EU is slipping between the fingers and in this phase - it has emphasized Verhoeven - the interest of the field of the marine transport of the EU to support this proposal is indeed much limiting".

For the association of the European shipowners, besides to reduce the field of application of the proposal, the States EU are also moving in order to relatively weaken the procedure of consultation of the harbour users to all the issues on the tariff policies in the ports, on the connections with hinterland, the efficiency of the administrative procedures and on the environmental issues. Moreover - it has accused the ECSA - the communitarian States are ulteriorly diluting the initial proposal of the EU commission making reverse regarding the issue of the necessity of an independent authority that monitors and supervisions the corrected application of the regulations.

"The European shipowners - it has concluded Verhoeven - speed up the Member States to reconsider their approach and to put again to fire the ragion of being of this legislative procedure, that is to say offering a reform in a position to improving the efficiency and increasing the transparency of the ports of the EU".