The EU commission has granted the extension for four years of the exemption from the norms on the competition in favor of the containerized companies of navigation



The EU commission has not listened to the exhortation of the organizations of the European shippers and other representations of ulterior the harbour and marine field and has granted the extension for four years of the exemption from the norms on the competition of the EU in favor of the navigation companies that operate line services, so as wished from the main European and international shipowning associations. Regolamento n. 906 of the 2009 relative one to the exemption of some categories of practical agreements and agreed between the containerized marine consortia, that it delineates the conditions based on which these consortia can operate services common without to violate the norms antitrust of the European Union that they forbid anti-competitive understandings between the enterprises, whose expiration was previously fixed on 25 April of this year after its validity already was extended five-year-old, therefore is postponed until on April 25, 2024.

Remembering that on september 2018 it had started a consultation public and lead an appraisal of Regolamento(on 27 September 2018), today the EU commission has explained that the appraisal has demonstrated that, in spite of the evolution of the market characterized from an increase of the consolidation and of the concentrations, from a change from the technological point of view and an increase of the dimensions of the ships, Regolamento is still suitable to its scope and that the consortili agreements that satisfy the conditions established in the consortia TO DRINK (Block Exemption Regulation) continue to satisfy the conditions of which to article 101 (3) of the Treaty on the Operation of the European Union that establishes that the dispositions of paragraph 1, that it declares incompatible with the home market and it prohibits all the agreements between enterprises, all the decisions of associations of enterprises and all the practical ones agreed that they can prejudice the commerce between Member States and that they have for object or effect to inside prevent, to shrink or to forge the game of the competition of the home market, can be declared inapplicable to any agreement or category of agreements between enterprises and to any decision or category of decisions of associations of enterprises, and to any practical one agreed or category of practical agreed that they contribute to improve the production or the distribution of the produced ones or to promote the technical or economic progress, also reserving the users a consistent part of the profit that of it derives, and avoiding to impose to the interested enterprises restrictions that they are not indispensable in order to reach such objectives and to giving to such enterprises the possibility to eliminate the competition for a substantial part of the produced ones of which be a matter yourself.

The Commission has announced to have found that the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation is translate in efficiencies for the marine carriers that can better use the ability to their ships and to offer a greater number of connections. "In particular - it has clarified Brussels - the appraisal has demonstrated that during the last few years it is the costs for the carriers that the prices for the customers for container from 20 ' (teu) are diminished of about 30% and the quality of the service has remained stable".

Between the first reactions to the decision of the EU commission to be extended the application of Regolamento that, negative, of Nicolette van der Jagt, general manager of the CLECAT (European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services), that he has spoken about "a lacked occasion in order to modify the norms on the marine transport of line so that rispecchino in fairer way the point of view of the customers".