the Council of the EU has adopted own position on the harbour services



Today to Luxemburg the Council of Ministers of the Transports of the European Union, under the Italian presidency of the minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Maurizio Lupi, has adopted an own position on the regulations for the access at the market of the harbour services and the transparency financial institution of the ports that previews that the norms are applied to all the marine ports listed in the guidelines of the EU for the development the transeuropea net of the transport TRIES, including in the list is the harbour ports of call that take part of "Core Networks" are those which figure in the "comprehensive Network" ( on 19 October 2011). However the Member States, within determined conditions, will be able to decide not to apply to the norms to the little ones ports that take part of the total net and could also be free to decide if to apply the regulations to other ports included in this does not list.

With respect to the different categories of harbour services, the ministers have established that cargo handling and the services to the passengers will be subject to the transparency rules financial institution, but will be exempted by the access dispositions at the market, as initially proposed from the Commission ( on 23 May 2013). The ministers have agreed that the Member States will have the possibility to decide at the market on the rules of access for these services, in agreement with the jurisprudence of the Law court of the EU.

The position of the Council of the EU previews that the Member States can decide at the market not to apply the rules on the access to the carried out services of pilotage within and outside from the ports, while the others will be applicable all leave of the legislative proposal, included the dispositions in transparency matter financial institution.

Moreover the dredging activity will be covered solo from the norms that impose a separate accounting for the activities financed with public funds and these rules would be only applied when the organ of management of the port that it receives financings publics inside carries out activity of dredging of the harbour area under its jurisdiction.

The Council of the European Union has adopted other modifications to the proposal of the EU commission with the objective to return some dispositions more flexible and to avoid to load the little ones you carry of disproportionate administrative burdens and in order to consider also of the differentiations that so characterize the harbour field in Europe as of particular circumstances of the Member States. For example the possibility is widened to limit the number of suppliers of services, in order to include the cases in which the volume of traffic it economically does not return the presence of various suppliers of services convenient. Moreover, on the base of safety considerations, safety and the environmental sustainability are included as reasons in order to limit the number of suppliers and for the imposition of obligation of public service. Transitory dispositions to the aim are adopted also not to interfere with contracts in existence or sign before the adoption of the regulations.

The position adopted from the ministers of the Transports of the EU previews that the principle of the free performance of the services is applied to the harbour services to determined conditions. In particular, to the Member States and the administrations of the ports it will be allowed to impose requisitioned minimums for the supply of harbour services and, if necessary, to limit the number of suppliers of services. Moreover, in case a harbour administration receives financings publics, will have to be held a separate accounting in order to demonstrate as they are used these deep ones. New rules are previewed also in order to return the rates of the harbour services more transparent and for the use of harbour infrastructures.

"It was not easy, but there is we have made it", minister Maurizio Lupi has commented. "The reached result in fact - it has found - is of great strategic thickness in the management of the European portualità. The countries of the Union have found an agreement on a thematic one that, until from the institution of the Community, had been always object of difficult sharing". Evidencing that the European ports, for their geographic location, the managerial forms, integration with the retroporti, often have various characteristics from nation to nation and of difficult harmonization, with the Countries of the area of the Baltic Sea and the Europe North that for example have in this field completely various requirements regarding those of the Mediterranean area, Wolves has emphasized that "this presidency has succeeded to find a common denominator and to so produce regulations that, finally, become a pillar in particular for the points of the pilotage, the dredging and the transparency financial institution. The action today - it has concluded - becomes a reference carrying for our Country own when the Italian government gets ready to write up, within ninety days from decrees Unblocks Italy, a plan of the portualità and the logistics".

The regulations will have now to pass to the sieve of the European Parliament before the final approval.

, Today while in the margin of the Council of the Transports of the European Union, the ministers accredit of Belgium, Germany, Countries Bassi and Switzerland have signed with minister Lupi the agreement that formalizes the change of denomination of the Rotterdam-Genoa Corridor in railway Corridor Rhine-Alpine goods and of it institutes the executive committee. The agreement returns the institutive European regulations of the railway Corridors operating goods, so as modified from the Parliament EU. The regulations preview in fact that the railway Corridors, where the international traffics are concentrated goods, are equipped of an executive committee for the supervision and the control and of a committee of management for the operating operation. The executive committee (Board Executive) will be composed of the representatives of the Ministries of Transportation of the Countries interested to the transit of the line, while the management committee (Board Management) will be composed of the representatives of the railway managers of the infrastructure. With the instrument of the committees Europe intends to monitor and to coordinate the development of the railway Corridors goods is in terms of performances, ability and offer in order to at best pick the requirements of the market and the operators, is in order to characterize the actions necessary to improve the qualitative and quantitative levels of the railway services goods. The agreement engages moreover the States crossed from the Rhine-Alpine Corridor to assure a greater coordination in the financial planning of the interested drafts and restates the interest to the development of actions coordinated on the implementation of the European systems of signaling (ERTMS/ETCS) and other future common actions, which those times to the mitigation of the noisiness of the railway wagons goods.