EU Port Services Update: October 2013: Interview with Mike Morris

March 26th, 2014 by JCB
Posted in Articles, Technical and Training | 1 Comment »

 

Mike Morris, Director of the Manchester Ship Canal Pilots, Executive of the Association and Vice President of EMPA, continues his hard work at European level working with other EMPA members to defend pilots. This is the third time that the EU has tried to introduce a ports package which introduces competition in pilotage and affect the careers of many of our members. 

Mike has travelled in Europe as part of a steering group of EMPA members in efforts to defend the status of pilots. The process is not straight forward and Mike’s knowledge of parliamentary workings both in the UK and Europe has been invaluable. He continues to communicate with Brian Simpson MEP, who is a member of the TRAN Committee (Transport and Tourism Committee) and other UK MEPs on the proposal, with the other members of EMPA communicating with their respective MEPs. Both Mike and Stein Inge Dahn, EMPA President, gave presentations on EMPA and the current EU ports package proposal at conference. Here are some of the MEPs of the EU parliament involved in the process and also key dates. 

Rapporteur: Knut Fleckenstein (Germany)

Shadow Rapporteurs:Georgios Koumoutsakos (Greece), Philippe de Backer (Belgium), Karim Zeribi (France), Philip Bradbourn (UK), Sabine Wils (Germany), Jouzas Imbrass (Lithuania)

Dates: 5 November 2013 hearing with stakeholders (Pilots are not included)

26 November 2013 presentation by Rapporteur

5 December 2013 Amendment deadline

January 2014 TRAN committee meeting

February 2014 Vote at TRAN committee

March 2014 – Plenary vote

 The article below gives an excellent view on the situation and was written by journalist Mike Gerber who interviewed Mike Morris. (MR)

 

Marine pilots fear that a document which landed on European Union legislators’ desks this summer contains proposals for regulatory changes which could seriously undermine their primary role of guiding ships safely into and out of port.

Nautilus (UKMPA and Unite) shares their anxiety about the plans, which form part of a package of port liberalisation recommendations the European Commission has submitted for consideration by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The EC document, concocted following consultation with various ‘stakeholders’, lays down a framework for establishing ‘market access’ to port services. The Commission says it has identified issues that may prevent port services from being optimally organised. It is concerned that market access restrictions mean that many port services are not subjected to strong competitive pressures. Monopolistic (or what the Commission calls ‘oligopolistic’) regimes may, it accepts, be justified in some situations – but it argues these can lead to market abuses. A significant proportion of shipping companies, export-import industries and other port users consider that services in many EU ports are unsatisfactory in terms of price, quality and administrative burdens, the EC says. The legal elements of its proposals relate to ports within the EU’s trans-European transport network.

The Commission accepts that port managing bodies may impose ‘minimum requirements’ on service providers to cover such things as professional qualifications, the necessary equipment for maritime safety, general safety and security and environmental requirements. But it argues: ‘These requirements should not be used as a way of implicitly introducing market barriers.’ Not all pilotage will be affected should the proposals become regulatory reality. Deep Sea pilotage services have no direct impact on port efficiency, so they do not need to be included in the regulation. But pilotage services supporting entry and exit of ports are firmly in the regulators’ sights.

The European Maritime Pilots’ Association EMPA), which represents more than 5,000 pilots from 25 European coastal states, wants the entire proposed regulation on market access to port services scrapped. Alternatively, it says, pilotage should be left out of the legislation. Pilotage, EMPA insists, is not a commercial enterprise and pilots must be able to refuse any operation if its safety is not guaranteed. In a competitive environment pilots’ dependability will shift from the interests of the port community to their sole contractual customers, the Association warns. According to EMPA vice-president Mike Morris, who is a senior Class 1 pilot in the port of Manchester and an executive member of the UK Marine Pilots Association (UKMPA), what the EC recommends conflicts with the legal definition of precisely what a pilot is. He points to the case of the Esso Bernicia – the tanker which collided with the jetty at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands in December 1978, spilling some 1,100 tonnes of oil. ‘The inquiry held in the House of Lords defined a pilot as an independent professional who is engaged by a shipmaster to act as a principal and not as the servant or agent of any harbour authority,’ he notes. ‘The most important aspect of this definition is the word independent. A pilot, although not insensitive to commercial expediency, is not acting under commercial pressure as is the shipmaster. Thus a pilot will only carry out the pilotage act only when he feels that the act can be undertaken safely with due regard to all factors.

‘Pilotage is a public service, not only protecting the port infrastructure but also the public and environment,’ Mr Morris stresses. The proposals would also, he says, infringe EU principles of subsidiarity – under which a function ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralised authority capable of addressing it effectively. Under subsidiarity, each member state should be able to define its own best practice, and EMPA maintains that pilotage is best regulated at local level to take into account local conditions and circumstances – as acknowledged in IMO Resolution A.960.

‘One size does not fit all,’ says Mr Morris. ‘Europe would do well to study history. Over 200 years ago in one of the earliest statements in the US Congress, pilotage was deemed a state function, a public service to ensure safety. It still is today.’ He refutes the argument that competition in pilotage would bring costs down while maintaining present safety levels. Costs, he says, would increase as there are no economies of scale as with a single provider, and private companies might also be tempted to increase profits by cutting down on standards of training: ‘Each competing pilotage service in the port would have to provide their own pilot launches, train their own pilots and provide their own equipment. They would effectively cherry-pick the best jobs, which would leave the less financially attractive vessels unviable.’  Under competitive pilotage, safety and security would be jeopardised with decisions based on commercial factors, not safety, Mr Morris fears. ‘At present, under the IMO resolution A.                      960 annex 2, a pilot has the right to refuse pilotage when the ship to be piloted poses a danger to the safety of navigation or to the environment,’ he points out. ‘If the pilot was dependent on keeping his job, he will carry out the act regardless of the risk involved.’

Nautilus shares these misgivings over the EU’s deregulatory approach to pilotage and other port services, and the Union has been part of the European Transport Workers’ Federation opposition to previous attempts to introduce a directive along these lines. With the ever-increasing pressure to reduce pilotage costs there is the potential for unfair competition to prevail, so reducing the standards of pilotage, Nautilus warns. It is therefore essential that pilots remain independent and free from unnecessary interference by destructive port management regimes – particularly given the increased number of ships masters’ who are not EU nationals, many with limited English language capabilities and unfamiliar with local waters.

Other bodies that have voiced concern include the European Sea Ports Organisation, the British Ports Association, the UKMPA and many national administrations.

What should give EU ministers and parliamentarians serious pause for thought is the experience of other countries that have experimented with liberalisation, where, EMPA says, safety standards have been reduced and the costs to shipowners have risen. Argentina is a prime example. On the River Plate, Argentinean pilots share the same channel and boats as Uruguayan pilots, almost on the same river track. The Uruguayan pilots are strictly regulated by their government and their costs are almost exactly half of those charged by the Argentinean pilots. And International Group of P&I Clubs statistics bear out that there have been more incidents involving the Argentinean pilots.

EMPA also cites evidence from Australia, Romania and Denmark. Australia introduced competitive pilotage in 1993 on the Great Barrier Reef, with three private companies licensed as pilotage providers. Since then, there have been five collisions and nine groundings, the most recent involving the tanker Atlantic Blue in the Torres Strait by the Great Barrier Reef in 2009. The incident resulted in a major review of pilotage in the strait and the Great Barrier Reef. In Ports of Australia operated ports, which are still strictly regulated by the government, there have been no major incidents.

In Romania, three pilotage services vie for ships. The cost of pilotage rocketed as the private providers attempted to recoup their outlay, while many accidents have resulted as corners were cut in training. And in Denmark, since competitive pilotage was introduced in 1988, the cost of pilotage has risen some 20% in real terms.

Captain Frédéric Moncany de Saint-Aignan, president of the French Maritime Pilots Federation and vice-president of the International Maritime Pilots Association, believes pilotage should be excluded from any commercial liberalisation: ‘If we rate port services on a scale linked with safety and security, training and qualification, public service obligations and market access restrictions, it becomes obvious that for reasons of general interests maritime pilotage is different from other port services, thus could not be regarded only in terms of economic considerations. Maritime pilotage is a safety issue and not an economic issue.’

So now it is down to the EU legislators. Until a final decision is made on the EC’s regulatory recommendations, there will be no let-up in the pilots’ campaign. Capt de Saint-Aignan speculates on the timeframe: ‘Nobody expects any final decision before the end of the present legislature and most probably the text will not be adopted under the current legislature of the EU Parliament. It could occur at the earliest mid-2015, with the new EU Parliament and new EU Commission. In that case nobody could say what will be the attitude of the next Parliament and Commission regarding this proposal. But nothing is sure.’

He adds: ‘In the coming months, we will continue our discussions and contacts with all involved stakeholders to ascertain that in no cases maritime safety and environmental protections would be put at risk by the EU regulation draft. Everyone has to remember that the first condition for a port to be competitive is to get safe, secure, fast and reliable nautical access for ships. It’s what marine pilots are made for.’

Article reproduced with the kind permission of Nautilus International.

Members should be aware of the recent press release by EMPA welcoming the pilotage exemption on market access proposed by Rapporteur Knut Fleckenstein.