EUROPEAN PORT GROUPS CRITICIZE REVISED EC DIRECTIVE

EUROPEAN PORT GROUPS CRITICIZE REVISED EC DIRECTIVE    The European Sea Ports Organization and the Federation of European Private Port Operators have criticized the European Commission’s amended proposal for a directive on market access to port services.
   In a joint statement, the European port associations said that they have “considered it essential to present a joint reaction, to draw the attention of the council of transport ministers to those key concerns of the port sector which are still not solved.”
   The European Commission, which seeks to introduce more competition within and among European port service providers, issued an amended proposal on Feb. 13.
   The European Sea Ports Organization and the Federation of European Private Port Operators said that the amended document still fails to recognize that the relevant market for a service provider (particularly a cargo handler) “can often be larger than the port itself” and that the position of ports which do not operate on the landlord model is not properly reflected in the directive.
   The port associations also called for other technical changes to the directive.
   “The requirement to have minimum two separate service providers for each category of cargo should be deleted as this requirement is an artificial way of introducing competition and is clearly unworkable where a port handles only a small amount of a particular category of cargo,” the port associations said.