The favourable treatment of the shipping lines, as the one being guaranteed via the Consortia Block Exemption Regulation (CBER), should be abolished! It is the ETF’s official position on the EC evaluation of the CBER. It would be for the sake of fair competition and quality jobs. The exemption from EU antitrust rules allows some shipping lines to share vessel capacity and coordinate sailing schedules to adapt to demand fluctuation. However, this has only led to further market distortions, especially in the case of vertically integrated carriers, favouring the dominant position of shipping lines over terminal operators and other actors of the supply chain and resulting in pressure on working conditions for the dockers and the maritime workers at large, due to ever-growing peaks of activity and unreliability of the schedules. (....)