Brussels and conferences: a time to restore truth
Letter to the editor from Prof dr H E Haralambides

SIR, For some time now I have been pondering whether I should my concerns on the European Commission's approach on the review of Council Regulation 4056/86 (conferences) known to all interested parties in an effort to restore truth as well as protect the interests of my own organisation from the slanderous and defamatory comments of the European Shippers' Council spoken at the Public Hearing of December 4, 2003, and subsequently posted on the commission's website (http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/antitrust/others/maritime/).

In 2003 we were selected by the European Commission (DG Competition) to "assist them in processing the public submissions that would be received in response to their Consultation Paper on the review of Council Regulation 4056/86".

One of the first things we were explicitly asked to do in the context of what has come to be known as the Erasmus Report was to "analyse any economic or statistical data concerning the stability of freight rates on trades on which a large conference has operated, compared to the stability of rates in other trades".

Surprisingly and unexpectedly, right before the submission of hte report and as a condition for accepting it, the commission asked us to make the "rate stability": part of the report an annex as well as to over-impose a disclaimer on it to the effect that this part of the report was one on our own initiative!

Since then, starting at the Public Hearing of December 4, 2003, the commission has consistently tried to "disown" this part of the report, considering it as "just another" third party submission. I quote statements of commission officials at the public hearing:

• "They have... on their own initiative and without relying on any data submitted in the consultation process, produced their own analyses based primarily on their own previously published work, and this part of the report is viewed by the commission as an input like any other input, an answer like any other answer, in the consultation process."
• "It is a consultancy report, and there is also a submission that is annexed which is the consultants' own submission."

We have informed the commission that we find these statements worrisome, wrong, confounding and disappointing.

So far, however, we have not had the privilege of an answer to our concerns.

I must stress again that we were explicitly asked to carry out the "rate stability" part of the report, and we were in no way restricted only to data submitted in the consultation process as the commission claims.

On the contrary, we were expected to analyse "any economics or statistical data" pertaining to the issue. As everyone in the maritime sector knows, I and my associates have plenty of things to do other than draft unsolicited (and thus unpaid) reports on our own initiative!

We therefore believe that the commission's approach to regard this part of the report the way it has aimed only at excluding it, for whatever purpose, from the consultation process.

To add insult to injury, following the commission's statements and approach, the following statement was made by ESC at the public hearing (also appearing in the commission's website):

• "I am very grateful to the chairman making it clear about the status of the Erasmus report. That study has not only gone beyond its terms of reference, but, as he very blatantly put it, relies on the work done by economists at Erasmus who, the ESC pointed out to the commission before they were instructed, have worked for Nedlloyd in the past, and you will see in the long list of academic literature the name of Professor Yarrow, who has written various papers with the members of the Erasmus team.
  
  "Professor Yarrow, again, has appeared in this very room on behalf of the Far-East Freight Conference in the FEFC case and I am not proposing to say anything more about this study, which I am afraid is a complete waste of everybody's time except to point out to the member states, in particular, that if you do read this study, bear in mind who wrote it."

While considering our next step we have contacted ESC, offering them an opportunity to retract these slanderous accusations, unworthy of ESC and clearly intended to discredit an expert report and damage reputations.

ESC knows very well that the academic independence and leading role of MEL is beyond question anywhere in the world, including the European Commission, and this is why we were selected as consultants.

And, although no one on the research team has ever worked for P&O Nedlloyd (as claimed), we have instead been giving courses to DG COMP on how to deal with conferences!

Most disappointingly, the ESC chairman's response was that "critical comments" such as these are perfectly legitimate!

I therefore leave it up to the readers of Lloyd's List to draw their own conclusions on the above statements, including the "legitimacy" of the EC conferring with one of the interested parties (ESC) on the selection of the consultant!

I firmly believe that members of ESC should look carefully into the ways the organisation is conducting its affairs, for the only thing statements such as the above do is to discredit ESC as a serious discussant in this or any other consultation process.

I am sorry for ESC if the research did not go their way but to that of the ocean carriers.

That is always the case with (independent) research - you never know where it will lead you (unless of course ESC believes that research output should be "predetermined").

Instead of attacking the report through slander, ESC should have mustered their economists and told us what was wrong with the report from a scientific viewpoint. This would be serious and welcome.

All else is suspect and unworthy of the importance this organisation has for Europe.

Prof dr H E Haralambides
Director
Center for Maritime Economics and Logistics
Erasmus University Rotterdam

Source: Lloyd's List