The much debated Port Regulation was adopted in the plenary of the European Parliament. The Regulation, which initial purpose was to liberalise ports throughout Europe, has been watered down by the Parliament and will – at best – do nothing more than maintaining status quo, the Danish Shipowners' Association said in its press release.
It is now the third attempt of the Commission to liberalise ports services, and the discussions on this sensitive topic have lasted for over a decade. However, even though the report was adopted at todays’ plenary in Strasbourg, there are no signs that the third time will be a charm.
From a shipowners’ point of view, this file will unfortunately have little to no impact on the market access to port services. The ports will have to be transparent in terms of public subsidiaries, but they will not be obligated to liberalise the port services. Consequently, shipowners will still face restrictive practices and legal obstacles in many port service markets in Europe.
There are, moreover, a few critical elements in the report which will have to be addressed in the trialogue meetings between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament before final adoption. One is the specific reference to the challenge of the increasing size of the vessels.
The file will now enter the trialogue discussions and a first meeting among the Member States is scheduled for 23 March 2016.