Labour is working within the European Parliament to defend the rights of port workers as the European Commission again put forward a directive advocating across-the-board liberalisation of port services.

The Group of European Socialists chose Labour Member of the European Parliament, Joseph Muscat as one of its three main spokespersons on the directive.

The Commission wants to introduce the concept of self-handling, whereby ship owners would be allowed to use their crew to carry out handling services. Port workers and authorities in Malta and across Europe are opposed to this concept.

The directive was first discussed in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee where Joseph Muscat represented the Socialist Group.

Muscat expressed the Socialists’ support for the principles of sustainable market liberalisation, but argued that experience is fast confirming that policies cannot be implemented indiscriminately along all sectors without first considering the necessary social, economic, cultural and environmental aspects.

The Commission does not seem to have revised its proposal in a positive manner since it was first rejected in 2003. Indeed, it seems that the situation got even worse when a number of conciliation positions, which took three years to be agreed, were done away with.

The extremely short period that the Commission allowed to elapse was subject to harsh criticism, namely because it did not bother to consult with stakeholders before putting forward the new proposal.

Furthermore, the Commission failed once again to provide the mandatory regulatory impact assessment to justify its proposal.

To make things even worse, the Commission has re-introduced the self-handing by ship operators not only by land but also by seafaring crew. This is a no go.

This clearly has an adverse impact on safety provisions and could lead to social dumping.

Moreover, it imposes authorisation procedures and its durations are reduced from a possible range of 10 to 46 years to a range of eight to 30.