ESC not joining new Global Shippers Forum

ESC not joining new Global Shippers Forum    The European Shippers’ Council has declined to join the reconstituted Global Shippers Forum, (GSF), which announced last week it is taking steps to become a non-governmental organization so that it could speak for shippers at organizations such as the United Nation’s International Maritime Organization.

van der Jagt

   Nicolette van der Jagt, secretary general of the European Shippers Council, said the decision was not based on any policy disagreement with other shipper groups, but a different view of the GSF.
   Robert Ballantyne, president of the Canadian Industrial Transportation Association and chairman of the newly incorporated global body, said, “As far as the rest of us could tell the European Shippers Council felt the Global Shippers Forum should continue as just an unincorporated ‘talk shop’ to meet once a year and talk about things, where everybody else felt that if the GSF was really going to be helpful to the shipper community on a global basis then it needed to have a bit more structure and be recognized as an NGO.
   “We had a lot of discussions to try and get them to change their mind,” he said.
   Ballantyne noted the United Kingdom’s Freight Transport Association (FT) will be a member of the GSF, and “there is hope that either the full European Shippers Council or at least some of the national associations within the ESC will decide it would be helpful to belong to a global body and that they will come back.”
   “My organization was actually very concerned by the decision to opt out of the GSF, and we have been very sorry to have to take it jointly with all national European councils,” said Philippe Bonnevie, national secretary of the French Shippers Council/AUTF.
   “The reasons for opting out were multiple: the structure of the GSF, its constitution, its activities were some,” he said. “Our concern on the proposed plan for financing the GSF was not of the least importance.”
   He noted the ESC was one of the founding members of the Tripartite Shippers' Group, the predecessor of the GSF in 1994, and the “policy spearhead” of the group on issues such as repeal of the antitrust immunity for maritime carriers and other touchy issues, including the Rotterdam Rules, where it disagreed with some other GSF members, including the National Industrial Transportation League.
   But Ballantyne said the disagreement over the Rotterdam Rues was a “one-off” disagreement and had nothing to do with the ESC decision to leave the group.
   “This being said, ESC and our organization will of course continue the dialogue with GSF on issues of mutual concern as we would with any other shipper organizations around the word,” Bonnevie said.
   Chris Welsh, FTA’s general manager of global and European policy, was named GSF secretary general.
   He said the ESC decision not to stay a member of the ESC was actually made last year.
   While GSF members had collaborated between their annual meetings on various issues, “the level of coordination and exchange of views between the annual meetings was very sparse and patchy.”
   Most GSF members felt “if we aspire to be truly global representative of this body of shippers to influence policymakers at the highest levels, particularly with the intergovernmental groups, then we need to take it a step further.”
Welsh said a number of pressing issues were being discussed where GSF feels NGO status will be particularly useful. These include proposals having to do with overweight containers and safe stowage of containers at the International Maritime Organization and International Labor Organization. Also GSF has been invited to be a member of Global Air Cargo Advisory Group by the International Air Transport Association, International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations, and The International Air Cargo Association to represent shipper on issues having to do with air cargo security. ' Chris Dupin