Brussels, 07/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the Transport Council reached a political agreement on the creation of a European Maritime Safety Agency to control the implementation of Community measures in the maritime sector. At the same time, it approved the directives on ship inspections by the "port State" and on classification societies, on the basis of the common project approved on 13 November in the context of conciliation procedure with the European Parliament. It also adopted the directive which will harmonise and simplify the administrative formalities when entering and leaving ports (see EUROPE of 6 December, p.9).
The directives on controls and classification societies will take effect in 18 months, except in the port of Rotterdam which obtained an additional six-month derogation. The Nice summit had, however, invited the Member Sates to apply the directives ahead of time. The Council's decision completes adoption of the "Erika I package", after adoption of the regulation that will ban single hull tankers between now and 2015, according to the timetable set by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
Maritime Safety Agency. The creation of the Agency is one of the three measures proposed in the second series of measures, called the "Erika II package", presented by the Commission after the sinking of the Erika tanker in France, with improved inspection of ships in European territorial waters and the creation of a complementary compensation fund. The Agency will have the task of collecting and diffusing information on maritime safety, monitoring the work of the classification societies and organising inspections for checking that controls carried out by the Member States are conform to Community rules. The last outstanding points were settled with the specification that: 1) the linguistic regime will be the same as that for the Community institutions (11 languages); 2) the governing board will be composed of one representative per Member State, four Commission representatives and four private sector representatives appointed by the Commission, who will not have the right to vote; 3) the Council and the Commission will later specify the arrangements for third country participation in the Agency; and 4) the place where the Agency's head office will be located will be defined during the Laeken Summit. The Commission recalled, as a matter of form, that it is responsible for the decision on the location of the Agency's seat. Nantes, Lisbon, Piraeus and Genoa are candidates. The Italian minister is the only one not to take the floor to defend his candidature.
Port State controls. Presented in the context of the "Erika I package", this directive provides for ships in the "black list" drawn up by the Commission to be banished from European ports, and that all high-risk vessels be subject to compulsory close annual inspection depending on their age and on a "target factor" defined by the directive. Some 4,000 vessels should be inspected each year, as opposed to 700 at the present time, said the Commission. Under pressure from the Parliament, the directive provides for compulsory introduction of black boxes on board vessels between 2002 and 2007. The first "black list" for vessels should be published in the Official Journal early 2002.
Classification society. The directive introduces sanctions towards classification societies whose controls have shown failings, as well as more severe transparency procedures for vessels that have frequently changed classification society.