James Cooper, CEO of Associated British Ports, has again called on the British Government to turn down the European Commision’s proposed Port Services Regulation
The Port Services Regulation, in its present guise, has been around since May 2013. It has always been resisted by UK ports including ABP and port representative groups including the Major Ports Group and BPA on the grounds that it would increase port costs and compromise investments, and lead to a reduction in competition – the very opposite of its aims.
Speaking at a Parliamentary reception hosted by ABP in London Cooper said that the Regulation is an “odious piece of legislation that must be thrown out. Ships are mobile assets and owners can transfer their business from one port to another at very short notice, yet we have to make long-term investments [in equipment, berths, access and landside infrastructure].”
The Regulation aims to introduce common rules on transparency of public funding and market access to port services. It is the European Commission’s third attempt to regulate ports at a European level and survived the REFIT programme initiated by Jean-Claude Juncker when he took over as president of the Commission in November 2014.
Last month the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) stated that it could see a “realistic compromise” emerging on the Regulation. FEPORT (the Federation of European Private Port Operators) has called for cargo handling services to be entirely omitted from the scope of the Regulation, along with private ports.
Source: Multimodal, 29 June 2015
