European Parliament
Beysen (NI ).
(NL)
Mr President, formally, the issue of self-handling received the most attention
during the debate on the Directive on market access to port services. This is justified, as it can have a major social impact. In the process, however, we lost sight of the fact that the issue of self-handling cannot be considered separately from the policy on authorisations, since the Member States can make self-handling subject to prior authorisation. It is regrettable that we have missed the opportunity of communitising authorisations policy. A new competitive battle now threatens to be joined between ports imposing stricter criteria and those with less strict criteria, and likewise when it comes to issuing authorisations.

