Brussels, 16/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - The tone has become more heated with regard to the reinterpretation of legislation on gigaliners, as sought by the European commissioner for transport, Siim Kallas. The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, directly addressed the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, with regard to this. In a letter concerning procedure and his wish to ensure respect for co-legislation, Schulz called for the reinterpretation of the 1996/53/EC directive to be postponed. This directive aims to authorise the cross-border use of gigaliners.
In his letter sent last week, the president of the European Parliament said that he was concerned by the new turn of events and the fact that “the Commission now envisages a review of its interpretation of the directive, instead of returning to the legislator with a new proposal”. Without wishing to prejudge the advantages or disadvantages linked to the authorisation of such traffic, he criticised the “procedural choices of 'reinterpreting' existing legislation” because this “would deny parliament its right of co-legislating on the changes proposed to directives”. He considers that this approach risks creating considerable legal uncertainty, even though the commissioner responsible for this reinterpretation had admitted that the directive contained a certain number of ambiguities.
Schulz has therefore asked Barroso to postpone any new interpretation of the text given that the draft proposal of the revision is expected at the end of the year. He considers that this would respect the, “prerogatives of the legislator and ensure greater certainty for operators”. There has not as yet been any official response from the Commission on the subject but according to parliamentary sources, Barroso's cabinet is said to have found the approach adopted by the president of the parliament justified. The cabinet of Commissioner Kallas was unable to comment on the matter at this stage. (MD/transl.fl)