The European Parliament today rejected the Commission's proposal for market access to port services by a huge majority of 532 to 120. ALDE group members moved to refer the proposal back to committee in order to address the concerns and weaknesses in the proposal believing that it is still necessary to provide legal clarity for competition and investment in the sector. As this approach did not command a majority, the group supported rejection of the proposal the effect of which will, in any case, require its transport committee to examine, jointly with the other institutions how to ensure and improve the future of the port sector and those who rely on it.
Following the rejection of this proposal Andrew Duff, together with his colleagues in the Liberal group urged the European Commission to conduct a comprehensive consultation process with all parties concerned and to come forward, as soon as practicable, with a White Paper on port activity covering all aspects of competition in the ports sector."
Mr Duff said 'I am in favour of a directive in theory - but not of this draft one. The special vertical, privately-owned nature of UK ports is taken account of in the draft directive, but the self-handling, pilotage and authorisation issues are still problematic. I fear much more bureaucracy without significantly more competition. The real issue is transparency of state aids to European ports, and this was only partially addressed by this measure.
