In this judgement, the Court found that the obligations for cargo-handling companies in Spanish ports to register with a 'pool company' and to hold shares in that company and to employ as a priority workers provided by that company run counter of Article 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). To date, Spain has not adequately addressed the issues identified in the Court's judgment; therefore, the European Commission has decided to refer Spain to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to comply with the judgement of 11 December 2014. The Commission invites Spain to rapidly undertake the necessary reforms in order to comply with this judgement; otherwise, the Court may decide to impose financial penalties on S ...[+++]pain.

In my own city of Cork and ports there, there is a proposal for a new service between that port and a port in Spain.

I. whereas Spain decided that Gibraltar should take responsibility for the New Flame in the context of the existing cooperation between the two, as the incident originated in the port of Gibraltar, in that the New Flame left the port without authorisation,

By that I do not mean ports in Italy, because they have an authorisation system, nor those in Spain, because they, too, have an authorisation system, but ports that have a rather casual approach to job protection and safety.

The governments of the UK, Spain, France and Germany have authorised the Chilean vessel Esmeralda to visit their ports.

These instances include the ‘pillow technique’ which led to the death of a female immigrant in Belgium, the use of strong sedatives in Spain, the transporting of immigrants in cramped conditions in the holds of ships in Italy and Spain, the tragic case of the 58 Chinese immigrants found dead at the UK port of Dover after they had been detained on a number of occasions on European soil, and the widespread use of various forms of coercion and intimidation against expelled immigrants.