Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-10-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20030310.5.1-102"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, when, a while ago in this House we considered the Green Paper on ports and maritime infra-structures, Parliament clearly identified the area in which we feel the Commission should be working. Firstly, the list covering the funding and the system of tariffs for ports, clear rules on state aid to ports and, finally, the adoption of measures guaranteeing access to the port services market through legislative instruments established at the Commission’s initiative and within its powers.
The Commission, however, decided, contrary to what was requested of it, to propose a directive on port services and to omit what Parliament had charged it to provide, which were clear rules on state aid. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the directive, despite the changes it has already undergone, has been contested so intensely at various levels, including here in Parliament, where a considerable number of amendments have been tabled at second reading.
In fact, the directive has not produced any measures that will benefit the operability and effectiveness of national ports where Portugal is concerned, and instead generates unnecessary bureaucracy and constitutes a potentially destabilising threat to the social harmony that has marked relations between the social partners in all Portuguese ports.
We must not forget the fact that, especially in Portugal, some companies have recently taken on obligations arising from legislative requirements, such as having to absorb all workers employed in any capacity in ports and whose interests must now be safeguarded. We cannot, therefore, accept the fact that this directive will allow any port user, who may or may not be accredited, to engage in cargo-handling activity, in contravention of national legislation on labour or on the operation of ports, which is binding on all port operators, under conditions other than those laid down, specifically for the use of operators’ own equipment and workers, and possibly on docks for which a public service concession has been granted.
As I stated, the obligation on current port operators to absorb the labour force contracted to ports on salaries around three times higher than the average in sectors with identical operational requirements means that the directive will not be able to allow a port user to engage in cargo-handling activity without having to be accredited, thereby using workers in more favourable conditions than those binding current port operators under the law and under collective bargaining agreements.
In this regard, we clearly maintain that self-handling must be confined to the work of a ship’s own crew, as the term ‘self-handling’ itself suggests, and used as a complement to and in conjunction with the port operator. Self-handling is the most controversial aspect of the directive and the aspect that will have the most implications for economic agents, especially in my country, especially for Portuguese economic agents, in the event that the wording that has just been approved does not safeguard the principles identified previously."@en1
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