1 Introduction
Shipping has become the most international of all the world's great industries. The European Commission highlights the importance of maritime transport services for the economy of the European Union. The Athens Declaration of the EU Member States acknowledges that 75% of the EU imports and exports depend on maritime transport.(1)http://ec.europa.eu/transport/sites/transport/files/modes/maritime/studies/doc/2015-sept-study-internat-eu-shipping-final.pdf Also, the EU underlines the need of maintaining the EU State Aid regime to support EU competition with non-EU countries and recognises the importance of a stable innovation-friendly regulatory framework for the competitiveness of the EU fleet in the context of liberalised international maritime services(2) ibid.
In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, the took imperative steps towards integrating the maritime governance. Although, innumerous efforts had been made for the liberalisation of maritime cabotage services, the adoption of the Cabotage Regulation was finally adopted in 1992(3) Rosa Greaves, “The Application of the EC Common Rules on Competition to Cabotage, incdluding Island Cabotage in Competition and Regulation in Shipping and Shipping Related Industries Martinus Nijhoff Publishers (Brill), (2009).. The essential characteristic of maritime cabotage is to serve the purpose of transporting passengers or goods by sea, between two places in the territory of a single Member State(4) ibid.
In the case of Greece this reform, has not been easily approved and implemented. Traditionally, the Greek coastal shipping has been a tightly closed market. Based on ‘‘public service’’ character of coastal shipping, the Greek government, relatively early, have had under control various aspects of coastal services, such as licensing, price-setting and the development of specifications for the quality of service(5) Maria B. Lekakou, “The Eternal Conundrum of Greek Coastal Shipping”, Chapter 8.. Greece was slow in introducing regulations that would liberalize the market and enforce the competition. Changes of the national institutional framework happened simply after a long period of negotiations, which results from the implementation of a European Union Regulation 3577/92, which is aimed at the abolition of all cabotage restrictions in all EU member states.
In this context, the purpose of this paper is first to give an overview of the system of inland maritime transport in Greece; and second, to assess the impacts in the Greek shipping due to the liberalization of the sector with focus on the coastal shipping and cruise.