EC, ocean carrier relations at a low

EC, ocean carrier relations at a low    Relations between ocean carriers and the European Commission have seemingly deteriorated after the liner carrier lobby, the European Liner Affairs Association, expressed its “disappointment at the EC’s accusatory tone” in relation to a post-conference Europe.
   Following the recent Council of Ministers’ vote to abolish liner conferences in Europe from 2008, the EC’s Directorate of Competition (DG Comp), published an Issues Paper which was wary of any alternative proposals such as the one put forward by the ELAA (see http://www.elaa.net/documents/RevisedELAAProposal.pdf )
   “While elements of the IP are pleasing to us, as clearly our views on the issue of information exchange have been heard and noted, yet DG Comp have once more used the opportunity to accuse the lines of past collusion. Harping on about the past doesn’t help the future,” said Chris Bourne, the ELAA’s executive director, speaking at the European Maritime Law Organization’s conference in Brussels.
   Over the last few months, the ELAA has conducted a survey of its members’ customers in order to gauge reaction to its own proposals for a trade association which it hopes will provide a forum for the collection and discussion of trade data. Results of the survey are still being assimilated although the ELAA said “early indications are encouraging.”
   “We have found that many shippers are not unsympathetic to our proposal. In particular our efforts (are) to improve the accurate forecasting of trade supply and demand as well as the need for carriers to discuss, both amongst themselves and with customers, developments within the trade. These are the very areas with which DG Comp professes to have difficulty,” Bourne said.
   The ELAA and its longstanding adversary the European Shippers’ Council recently met for their first official meeting since the early 1990s, producing “a positive exchange of views,” according to the ELAA.
   “It is through the involvement of our customers in industry level decision-making that a stable, reliable and efficient service will be maintained in the future,” Bourne said.
   “The lines have always acted within the boundaries of the law and will continue to do so. In the circumstances DG Comp’s tedious and unsubstantiated accusations are not helpful, nor are its suggestions that the lines would hurry to collude in the future.
   “Most recently shippers have concentrated on the abolition of conferences, this is understandable but now is the time for them to think seriously about what replaces this system. No one knows better than shippers and carriers how to run this industry and together we need to tell the competition authorities what we need in order to meet the future.”