The European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) has written to the European parliament to request that the financing of port infrastructure by member states should not be considered as state aid.

ESPO said the EC had been working on state aid guidelines because it was "a public secret that interpretations on the application of state aid rules to ports differ within the Commission".

In its letter it said: "ESPO advocates a pragmatic approach which continues to reserve the right for member states to finance the construction of port infrastructure as a general measure of economic policy which would not normally be considered to fall under the treaty rules on state aid."

"This general principle would however not apply to any kind of possible aid resulting from preferential treatment of certain companies for the use of these infrastructures."

It said adopting a more dogmatic interpretation whereby any form of public funding would be seen as state aid would jeopardise the future development of ports and their integration into logistics chains and would lead to "tremendous bureaucracy" in terms of notification procedures.

This approach would then logically also have to be applied across the transport chain in order to ensure a level playing field, ESPO added