CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR ask not to renew Regolamento of exemption for category for the containerized marine consortia



Today eight primary international associations that they represent companies of the fields of shipments, the logistics, the marine services and the intermodal transport have invited the EU commission not to postpone beyond the 25 expiration date of next April the duration of the application of Regolamento n. 906 /2009 of exemption for category for the containerized marine consortia (TO DRINK). With the exhortation, previously already been left over by some of these associations, the document of job favorable to the extension of the duration of Regolamento is contested without to bring modifications to you that are published last November to conclusion of an analysis carried out from a team of the which charged Commission to estimate the opportunity to extend the norm. It is emphasized, in particular, as such job would not have demonstrated that the prosecuzione of DRINKING, that is in vigor from 1995 and is updated in 2010, would go for the benefit of the users of the transports, the suppliers of services and the consumers.

The invitation turned today to the EU commission has been undersigned from CLECAT (European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services), ETA (European Tugowners Association), EBU (European Barge Union), ESC (European Shippers' Council), FEPORT (The Federation of European Private Operators), GSF (Global Shippers' Forum), Global Shippers' Alliance (GSA) and UIRR (International Union for Road-Rail Combined Transport).

CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR have denounced that the EU commission would have rejected to almost all the observations introduced from the users, from the operators and suppliers of services that take part of the supply chain in the within of the consultation carried out from the Commission in 2018.

Moreover, second the eight associations, in the advance arguments from the Commission in order to motivate the extension of Regolamento would be many legal defects legacies to various elements, between which the lack of data, the presence of unilateral hypotheses on the efficiency increments that they would not hold account of vestments not correlated to the hires, the devoid one corrected definition of the important geographic markets to the aim to estimate the inability and market shares absolute to identify the benefits for the users if Regolamento TO DRINK had to be been extended.

According to CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR, "a deepened legal analysis" of the relationship of the Commission last November would have evidenced - they have explained the associations - than "the Commission would not have obtained from the marine carriers, that they benefit of DRINKING, the relative data to the relevant rates and the information and market shares available easy apt to allow them to light reexamine the operation of DRINKING of the main developments of the field beginning from the last review carried out in 2014. The Commission - they have found the associations - admits that it is difficult to estimate the exact market shares of the consortia because of the lack of precise data on the transported volumes and of the complicated belongings which crossed between consortia. This - they have evidenced - is equivalent to admit that the terms of DRINKING are inapplicable as the Commission cannot calculate with precision if a consortium re-enters in the threshold of market share".

Moreover, for CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR, the Commission "have not taken note that DRINKING it represents the application of the norm on the competition to a category of specific agreements, and are not instead an independent norm as it are the normal legislation EU that is subject to the procedures of the EU in matter of improvement of the regulation and to the relative processes of appraisal".

The eight associations have accused also the EU commission not to have examined in way accurate and balanced five criteria of appraisal: "without an adapted explanation - they have clarified - the job document has erroneously excluded the alliances from the appraisal of DRINKING, alliances - they have specified CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR referring to the presumed differences between shipowning consortia and shipowning alliances, differences that evidently second these associations not sussistono - than through investments in Large Hooligan Vessels Container has remarkablly modified the economy of the marine transport of line, with a consequent variation of the structure of the costs for the suppliers of logistics and infrastructures".

"It is amazing - they have observed CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR - than the document of job of the Commission concludes that the alliances are insignificant to the aims of its appraisal of DRINKING because two of the alliances do not re-enter in the threshold of 30% of the market share relatively to determined traffics". Moreover the associations consider "frustrating equally that the appraisal criteria totally are distorted in favor of the interest of the marine carriers".

For CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR, the EU commission "would not even not have recognized, in spite of the tests supplied from specific relationships of the International Transport Forum, than the reduced possibility of rationalization of the costs it has involved a continuous deterioration of the quality of the service and an abuse of being able because of their dominant position in confronts of the suppliers of services in the within of the logistic chain and, therefore, an erosion rather than an increase of the economic benefits to share with users and consumers". Relatively to the quality and the possibility of chosen of the services supplied from the consortia/alliances between containerized marine companies, the eight associations consider that "during the last few years they are diminished".

At last the associations deem that the Commission "has not analyzed the impact of the marine consortia on the harbour activities and of terrestrial transport. The panorama of the field of the marine transport - they have found - is changed in the sense that the marine carriers do not limit their services to the services from port to port extending them to door to door. Moreover they exchange given on the services legacies to the port and to the side earth that is returned easier access from the developments in the areas of the big date, the business intelligence and the analysis, and all this was not available for the field of the marine transport of line to the time of the precedence reviews of DRINKING".

CLECAT, ETA, EBU, ESC, FEPORT, GSF, GSA and UIRR have concluded asking an encounter Margrethe Veestager, executive vice-president of the EU commission, and inviting the Commission not to renew for ulterior four years DRINKING and to lead an adequate objective appraisal of Regolamento in the arc of next the 12 months, time - they have explained - that would have to be used in order to collect and to estimate all the information that the associations consider are today lacking.