Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-10-Speech-1-094"
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"en.20030310.5.1-094"2
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".
Madam President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the stones that have been flung at this Parliament this afternoon, let us, dispassionately and calmly, debate an issue that we have had to deal with for months, indeed years – the issue of the European regulation of sea ports. The Council at last handed down its common position on 5 November, so that we are now through to the second round.
I know, Madam Vice-President, that we two have an excellent relationship, but on this point we are, unfortunately, at odds with each other, and I would again ask you to give the question further consideration. What this Parliament demands is a regulation that holds in a balance the interests of the shipping companies, of the port entrepreneurs, and of the workers both on the ships and on land. The proposal we are putting forward is an excellent one, one that all these parties should consider very carefully, and, in the conciliation procedure, they should also support the provisions on transparency. We both – as, I hope, does the Council – want seaports to be efficient and to perform well, and to be places where workers and entrepreneurs can coexist amicably.
There is one thing that I believe should be apparent even to those who were throwing stones this afternoon, and that is that seaports need to be regulated in the same way across the EU, as seaports, being nodes of intermodal transport, have a central part to play in European transport policy as a whole. There is a need for improvement in Europe's ports, and that needs to be accomplished, on the one hand, by clear rules on competition among ports and within each port, and, secondly, by means of transparent market access for harbour services.
The Council has stated its position, and now, on the basis of the first position, we again have to give our opinion. There are four things I want to say about the 34 amendments that the committee has submitted. First, the committee takes the view that we need unambiguous provisions to establish fair conditions for competition between ports. Even though the Council and the Commission have made statements in the Council Minutes to the effect that they too can see the need for fair framework conditions for competition, such declarations of intent are not satisfactory, as, even if the Commission were to extend the transparency directive to ports, it would not achieve what we want, which is, firstly, that enterprises operating out of ports and the harbour companies should actually themselves provide the Member States and the Commission with details of the financial links that exist between them and the state, the region, and the cities; secondly, that the Commission should act on this information; thirdly, that it should then actually prohibit measures that distort competition; and finally, that it should put before us a transparency report that would enable us to see where we need to do more work.
Madam President, the regulation on state aid that the Commission submitted at the last minute is not adequate, either.
There has to be legal certainty for the ports and for the port companies. We have to know which financial arrangements regarding port infrastructure do not constitute subsidies and do not require modification, and which actually are subsidies and need to be approved. It follows that we need clear and binding guidelines.
Secondly, we are agreed – in the committee at any rate – that pilot services are to be taken out of the scope of the directive. The Council's approach is to keep pilot services within the directive's scope, but then to state that all are free to do as they please. In contrast to that, we favour clear and open regulations. We want pilot services in the Member States to be regulated in the public interest and in accordance with the safety requirements in force in that Member State, whether these pilot services be private or provided by the state. That is something that the Member States should regulate for themselves.
The demonstration, and a number of strikes in European ports, were about self-handling, and this is where I am, quite seriously, astonished. After all, we all spent last week in discussions with trade unionists. It was Parliament that, at first reading stage, restricted self-handling to a port's own staff and equipment. The committee's report introduces a further restriction – to a ship's own crew. The unions are striking, and I have no idea why. If they are generally opposed to European regulation of ports, then let them say so. They have not said that up to now.
I take the view that there is fierce competition among ports, and that there must be openness and a fair balance between the interests of the shipping companies and the port companies. An individual port belongs neither to the people who work in it nor to some state-operated harbour monopoly, nor indeed to the shipping companies. A balance must be found between fair competition and entrepreneurial freedom, and so I can only say that our proposal on self-handling is the right one. Nor can I understand why some are now saying that we have to make all port services subject to a conditional agreement. The Commission has stated that the Member States can require that they be submitted for approval. At first reading stage, Parliament took exactly the same view, as did the Council in its Common Position.
There is absolutely no reason – and, Madam President, I do not consider it permissible – to vote, tomorrow, on amendments imposing, in Article 6 (1), mandatory approval on all Member States at once. The Belgians can do things the way they want to, but it makes no sense to impose a course of action on the Finns, and so, tomorrow, we should have no misunderstandings in this House, and there should be no reference to election campaigns, wherever they are being fought. We of course want the compensatory payments to be arranged on a mandatory basis, with unambiguous criteria, and so we have no great problems in that regard."@en1
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