Brussels, 14/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - In its fourth bi-annual report covering the years 1999-2000, the Commission sets out the results of implementation of the principle of free movement of maritime cabotage services. Today, it stresses, almost all maritime cabotage services are open to those who benefit from the regulation in question (Community shipowners operating vessels registered in a Member State and flying this Member State's flag, if such vessels fulfil all the conditions required to be admitted to cabotage in that Member State). Before 1 January 1999, the only services still to be liberalised were regular passenger transport services and ferry services as well as cabotage services with the islands of five Member States (Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Portugal).
The Commission considers this penultimate wave of maritime cabotage liberalisation has allowed the presence of Community operators on markets hitherto reserved only to nationals, but in a limited way. It notes that "provisions of the regulation on crews and public service certainly played a moderating role" in this respect. Greece keeps a national fleet that dominates 98% of all traffic, and Italy, Spain and Portugal have fleets covering nearly 90%. France is the market most open to non-nationals (25% of the fleet is made up of vessels flying EEA flags and 7% of non-EU and non-EEA vessels).
Generally speaking, this new phase of liberalisation has not entailed market upheavals. The market remains relatively stable, not only for goods transport (260.99 million tonnes in 1999 as opposed to 255.19 million in 1995) but also for passengers (152 million in 1999 compared to 154 million in 1995). The UK market represents over 70% of goods transported in the northern Member States and the Italian market accounts for nearly half of all goods carried within the five southern States (Spain, France, Greece, Italy and Portugal), where cabotage was liberalised on 1 January 1999. Passenger transport has fallen in northern countries but the demand has increased in the south. The significant fall recorded by Denmark, for all kinds of transport together, can be explained by the fact that the bridge linking Copenhagen to the continent is now open.
The report sees modernisation of the national fleets of the five southern States concerned and the improvement of the quality of services provided as the most marked positive effects of liberalisation. This improvement in quality could promote modal rebalancing in favour of maritime and river transport and contribute to the advent of "sea highways", mentioned in the Commission's White Paper.
The final stage to be implemented consists in the liberalisation of two insular cabotage services (regular passenger transport services and ferry services as well as services provided by vessels weighing less than 650 gross tonnage) that Greece plans to open to Community shipowners, even before the deadline of their exemption system foreseen in 2004, while maintaining certain public service obligations.
European transport ministers will be examining this report during their informal meeting of 31 May in Gijon and will reflect on the orientation to be given to future reports (periodicity, content …). In addition, the Commission hopes to adopt, for end 2002, a communication on the interpretation of the cabotage regulation concerning public service issues in particular.