With two months to go before the European regulation on the recycling of ships takes effect, Martin Dorsman, the secretary general of the European Community Shipowners’ Association (ECSA), said that the EU could spearhead the increase in environmental requirements and improved working conditions in shipyards, across the world.
Dorsman thus spoke of a “dynamic process” that has been ongoing for three years now. For ECSA, this improvement is the result of having adopted the 2013 regulation which compels shipyards worldwide to come up to standards that will be made compulsory for the breaking of European ships on 1 January 2019.
Between 1,000 and 1,300 commercial vessels are decommissioned each year, two-thirds of which are registered in European countries, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) states.
In particular, the regulation provides for the Commission to hold a list of shipyards likely to deal with end-of-life ships in the best conditions. Being impatient to have that list extended to third countries (see EUROPE 11703), ECSA welcomed the addition of three extra-European shipyards in October.
Just 1% of ship recycling is carried out in Europe compared with 33% in Bangladesh and 22% in India, ECSA states.
The regulation relates to the standards decreed by the Hong Kong Convention, which was signed in 2009 but which, for now, has been ratified by only seven states in the world and which will not take effect until two years after having been ratified by at least 15 states representing at least 40% of the global trading fleet and 3% of recycling capacity.
Although 80% of ships worldwide are still broken up in bad conditions, the nautical industry is nonetheless “determined to increase the breaking and recycling standards”, Dorsman said. The large Danish shipowner Maersk, for its part, already confirms it upholds standards that are higher than those recommended by the treaty of Hong Kong. Two of its shipyards located in Alang Bay, in India, are currently the subject of a Commission inquiry.
The recent developments are making it possible for a new industry to come into being and for completion of a “naval chain of value”, Maersk states, saying that the Commission must place emphasis on transparency in its investigations. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal)