Original scientific paper
Competition Law of the European Community and Sea Ports
Božena Bulum
; Jadranski zavod HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
In 1997, in its Green Paper on Sea Ports and Maritime Infrastructure, the European Commission announced the liberalisation of the port services market. In February 2001, the European Commission adopted a Communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled “Reinforcing Quality Services in Sea Ports: A Key for European Transport”. Added to this Communication was a proposal for a Directive on market access to port services. This proposal was the first attempt to design a specific European legal regime for the port sector. The proposal for the enactment of a specific European Directive on port operations is, in itself, a positive move. The main reason for this is that it is not always clear how provisions and principles of primary European Community law should be applied to the port sector. The available case law on port services offers partial solutions. The Directive could codify the available case law and the rules of management practice in Member States and ports that operate transparently and in conformity with market conditions. In this way, the Directive would contribute to a more uniform enforcement of European law, and would serve as a useful instrument in creating legal certainty for the benefit of port authorities, operators and users. It could help to create the preconditions for open competition within and between ports without compromising their operational autonomy and safety. However, from the very beginning, the Directive met with resistance in certain port circles. Public opposition to the Directive grew after the trade unions of dock workers in some Member States realised that the existing national legislation on dock work would be compromised. This was the main reason why the first proposal for the Directive was rejected by the European Parliament.
In October 2004, the European Commission presented the second proposal for an EU Directive on access to the market of port services. However, in the second proposal some significant shortcomings of the first proposal were still apparent. The second proposal was also more complex and contained many ambiguous and illogical provisions that might compromise legal certainty. It was rejected by the Parliament in January 2006.
In this paper, two proposals for an EU Directive on access to the market of port services are analysed, as well as a future EU port policy.
Keywords
port services; market access; market competition; obligation to obtain an authorisation; objective selection procedure; limitation of the number of service providers; self-handling
Hrčak ID:
20432
URI
Publication date:
18.1.2008.
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