Brussels, 22/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market rejected, on 14 September, the Commission's proposal for a regulation on access to the port services market, with the adoption, by 23 votes to 3, of the own-initiative report by Swedish Eva-Britt Svensson (GUE). Ms Svensson considers that the European ports are already among the most competitive in the world, and that the discrepancy between national legislation has in fact been in their favour. Ms Svensson admits that the current proposal which grants more weight to the collective agreements and to social protection takes more account of the social aspects than that of 2001, but it calls for provisions on work inspections to be included and for the possibility of resorting to self-aid to be abolished, considering that this could be harmful to the working conditions of the personnel employed in ports. The committee's rejection reflects the opposition to the text of many actors in the sector, an opposition that the rapporteur, Georg Jarzembowski (EPP-ED, Germany), had already been able to note during the public hearing on 14 June by the parliamentary committee on transport (EUROPE 8973). As the Svensson report is no more than an own-initiative report, it is the vote by the transport committee on the Jarzembowski report in November that will be decisive for the plenary vote in December.