What we do need, however, is for the same to apply to Indian and American ports. The Indian government recently agreed a key law which will allow foreign container shipping lines to operate between Indian ports. This is the same global agenda driving the EU Port Services Directive. Surprisingly, the slow man is the USA.
In this, quite clearly, the EU should not be the focus of our attention. We need far greater global participation in order to revive trade. In this there is no value in Britain being subordinate to the EU at the IMO or anywhere else, and seeing how we could deal directly, we could even act as an agent for the EU. A real partnership. Real cooperation.
A lot of this is speculation, but I'm tuned into shipping news channels and it would appear the industry experts also struggle to bring clarity to it all. What we can say is that the opportunities are many, and again we are not well served by our euro-parochialism. There is life beyond the EU and massive scope for boosting global trade - but only if we have our own integrated trade and aid policy and stop delegating to the EU, which in turn delegates to do-gooder NGOs who are accountable to nobody and have wholly different agendas.
What we see from Hannan and the likes is opposition to regulation for its own sake, especially so because they believe it comes via the EU. It's a variant of Bent Banana Histrionics. The worst kind too; libertarian hypocrisy. Better regulation that opens up ports to competition and brings efficiency to supply chains could well be the engine of global growth - but only if we think globally and deal direct with the people who really make the rules. The IMO and the WTO should be the focus of our attention. There is a big mess to clean up.
