Today, Monday 17 March 2014, the European Parliament’s (EP) Transport Committee will announce that the debate on the Port Services Regulation (PSR) will be put on hold to be resumed after the European Elections. The decision was taken by the Rapporteur jointly with the shadow Rapporteurs and the political groups. The reasons given for the postponement of the debate are the tight time frame, the lack of a joint vision among the political groups on the market access chapter and the need to link the regulation to the ongoing initiatives on modernisation of state aid.
The ETF has already expressed its criticisms over the draft regulation (see the articles “ETF presents opinion on port liberalisation in public hearing” and “ETF adopts its position on Port Services Regulation”). The difficulties encountered by the political groups to find compromises on some of the central parts of the proposal show how the draft regulation is inappropriate and that market access is not seen as a priority by many policy-makers and stakeholders.
Livia Spera, ETF Political Secretary comments: “The Rapporteur and his colleagues have done a good job trying to improve the proposal. But we still lack a substantial improvement of the protections to the workers in the sectors that are included in the market access chapter. Social protection cannot be an option, they should be applied compulsorily and in a uniform way to all workers employed in technical-nautical services. The ETF will keep working with the new Parliament to make sure its view is integrated once the debate will be resumed.”