Brussels, 27/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The rapporteur on the ports package believes the Commission's proposal is “amendable”, although the two other attempts previously failed at the European Parliament. Knut Fleckenstein (S&D, Germany) presented his draft report, composed at this stage of around 80 amendments, to his colleagues in the transport committee (TRAN) on Tuesday 26 November. However, the TRAN committee MEPs were still very sceptical about the actual interest of the proposal for a regulation that they will vote on in February. The ports package aims to make European ports more efficient by ensuring financial transparency, the market openness of six port services, and the independence of control bodies. In essence, the rapporteur commended the fact that the Commission has excluded passenger services from the liberalisation of services and has not touched the social section. “Employment policy remains in its place - in the area of the social dialogue”, he said. He intends to work so that the proposals are not fresh obstacles for the ports that work well, but bring improvements to those that are less efficient.
In his amendments, he suggests taking piloting and dredging out of the scope of the regulation, these services being more related to port safety and infrastructure. Towing and mooring should also be removed, in the view of a number of MEPs. The rapporteur suggests, too, that three criteria be taken into account in authorising the reduction in the number of service providers (size of the market, port capacity and environment). He also recommends that some room for manoeuvre be left for ports to determine their own tariffs (and commercial practices). Fleckenstein suggests removing too small contracts from the scope of the concessions directive (which is in the process of being adopted by Parliament). Finally, with regard to the monitoring bodies, he says that there is no need for more where they already exist. From among the shadow rapporteurs, he received the support of Georgios Koumoutsakos (EPP, Greece) while Philip De Backder (ALDE, Belgium) was critical of the insertion by the employment committee of social provisions. On the other hand, Philip Bradbourn (ECR, UK) deemed the proposal unacceptable because it was too intrusive, while Sabine Wils (GUE, Germany) railed against the introduction of amendments seeking to ensure only a minimum service, and in so doing denying the right to strike. Between these two extremes, other EPP and S&D MEPs remain highly sceptical of the usefulness of the regulation in light of its limited scope. Even the chair of the TRAN committee, Brian Simpson (S&D, UK), acknowledged that what they were doing was tantamount to passing a law just for the sake of doing so. (MD/transl.fl)