ELAA to Close with Mission Accomplished

The European Liner Affairs Association will phase out and transfer its responsibilities to the World Shipping Council as of July 1, the Brussels-based association of container shipping lines said Friday.

The ELAA said its carrier members agreed at their March 17 meeting in Taipei that the association had successfully completed the tasks for which it was set up, and therefore should be closed.

The ELAA’s members are still considering how to maintain and expand its database of freight rates and volume, which will not be taken over by the WSC.

The WSC is a Washington, D.C.-based association whose 29 carrier members transport more than 90 percent of the world’s containerized trade. It focuses on issues affecting the liner shipping industry. It has been focusing most recently on ways to improve maritime security and to support the establishment of global environmental standards for the shipping industry.

The ELAA was set up in 2003 to discuss with the European Union’s Directorate General for Competition (DG Comp) the replacement of the Liner Conference regime in the EU.

This was completed with the publication of the Maritime Transport Guidelines in 2008. The ELAA’s work was later extended to encompass the forthcoming revision of the EU’s Consortia Block Exemption Regulation.

ELAA members took the view it was unlikely any new regulatory issues for the industry would come up before the renewal of the EU’s guidelines, due to take place in 2013.

As of July 1, any regulatory issues will be handled by the World Shipping Council, which already has an office in Brussels and will take over responsibility for all regulatory affairs worldwide for the liner industry in future.

“The industry always intended to close ELAA once the work it was set up to do was completed,” said Chris Bourne, executive director of ELAA. “I view with some satisfaction that the relationships between the liner shipping industry and DG Comp have immeasurably improved since 2003 and DG Comp now has a firm grasp of the importance of the liner industry to the European and global economies.”

The ELAA Members also considered the future of the ELAA database, which was set up to report on European trades, following the abolition of the conference system in Europe. The Members agreed that this system organized by the ELAA subsidiary CTS should now be extended to non-European trades.