Brussels, 22/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The representatives from European ports hope that the future proposals from the European Commission on port services will be "realistic". The Commission should present, in January and February, a Directive on transparency in the markets for port services that apply to all to ports recording a traffic of 3 million tonnes or more, and would impose among others: 1) calls for tenders for the allocation of port services markets (towing, port piloting, docking, etc.), 2) the separation of accounting between the services activities and the regulation activities when they are both ensured by the port authority, 3) the allocation of services markets by an independent authority. This proposal is in line with the 1997 Green Paper on port infrastructures, in which the Commission underlines the present opacity of public finances and the markets for port services.
In two Communiqués published for the seminar in Antwerp on the issue, the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) and the Federation of European Private Port Operators (Feport), welcomed this initiative while expressing reservations. ESPO "hopes that this legal instrument will respect the diversity of the port sector by concentrating of the basic principals and leaving sufficient margin to manoeuvre to the local autonomies and subsidiarity". The future Commission Communication and the draft Directive should establish general principals, applying to all types of port services delivered within the ports and to all types of organisation. The aim would be to answer the diversity of European port structures: private monopolies in the United Kingdom, or public in Italy; trade union monopolies on labour in Sweden, etc.
The private operator on their side insist on two priorities that should according to them be covered by the Directive: 1) fair conditions for competition between the public and private operators, by avoiding distortions linked to state aid or to exclusive rights, 2) measures enabling to ensure that the port authorities are not judge and jury, when they must allocate sites to terminal operators.
The two associations join together to call on the Commission not to set maximum deadlines for concessions or rental contract for port lands, by putting forward the significant investments that must be made by these operators and their duration of reimbursement (the Commission services seem to be considering limit of 5 to 25 years according to the nature of the concessions).
The ESPO also calls on the Commission not to insist on presenting in its Communication an inventory of the public financing systems granted to ports, but that it clarify the application of Community rules for State aid in this sector.