Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 December 2016 - Strasbourg

Market access to port services and financial transparency of ports (A8-0023/2016 - Knut Fleckenstein)

  Diane James (NI). – Madam President, the United Kingdom did not request this inappropriate and unacceptable intrusion into the running of their ports, and I accordingly voted against the directive. After all, the UK is a maritime nation with a huge number of successful, efficient and effectively-run ports. It did not need another EU directive bringing about legislation, which will highlight why sovereign control of a major infrastructure project should stay with that government and that country and not be ceded to the European Union.

There are over 500 companies in the United Kingdom – and indeed many of them are in the south—east region which I represent – which employ people in the port services. This legislation would do nothing to improve their lives and it would do nothing to improve the running of those ports. In fact, it would be very detrimental.

When an EU decision actually hampers rather than enhances, the people who voted to leave the European Union feel vindicated. I do wish the European Union would take that on board because you complain all the time about driving people away from the European Union concept and yet legislation like this achieves precisely that aim.