European Council adopts major maritime legislative package

The European Council has now adopted four important new pieces of legislation —and, as ever, the devil is in the details in terms of things that vessel owners and operators should start worrying about. The measures are part of a maritime legislative package that, along with one on the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), were submitted to the council by the European Commission on June 1, 2023. Among the measures is one that extends the directive on ship sourced pollution to include residues from exhaust gas cleaning systems (in other words, scrubber wash water), Something else to watch is that recognized organizations (usually classification societies) acting on behalf of flag states will be subject to monitoring oversight.

Following their signature by the presidents of the Council and of the European Parliament, all four legislative acts will be published in the EU’s Official Journal in the coming weeks and enter into force twenty days thereafter. Member states will have 30 months after the entry into force of the revised directives to transpose their provisions in their national legislation.

The legislation now adopted by the council amends the relevant EU directives on:

• the investigation of accidents in the maritime transport sector
• ship-source pollution
• compliance with flag state requirements, and
• port state control.

The council says that the package achieves a careful balance between, on the one hand, the need to ensure a high quality of shipping and, on the other, the need to safeguard the competitiveness of the European shipping sector, while also maintaining reasonable costs for operators and member states’ administrations. Overall, says the council, it will equip the EU with modern tools to support clean shipping by aligning EU rules with international standards while improving implementation and enforcement through an enhanced cooperation framework between European and national authorities.

DIRECTIVE ON ACCIDENTS INVESTIGATION

The revised directive on investigation of accidents in the maritime sector:

• improves the protection of fishing vessels, their crews, and the environment, with fishing vessels less than 15 meters in length now included within the scope of the directive, meaning that accidents involving fatalities and loss of vessels will be investigated in a harmonized way
• clarifies the definitions and the legal provisions so that member states’ accident investigation bodies investigate all accidents that need to be investigated in a timely and harmonized manner
• enhances the capacity of accident investigation bodies to conduct and report on accident investigations in a timely, expert, and independent manner
• updates several definitions and references to relevant EU legislation and IMO regulations, to ensure clarity and consistency
• enables accident investigation bodies to conduct accident investigations in a harmonized way throughout the EU by making the existing rules clearer and more consistent with international regulations
• strengthens the provisions regarding the independence of accident investigation bodies and the confidentiality of their findings and reduces unnecessary administrative burdens.

DIRECTIVE ON SHIP-SOURCE POLLUTION

The revised directive incorporates international standards into EU law, ensuring, says the council, that those responsible for illegal discharges of polluting substances are subject to dissuasive, effective, and proportionate penalties to improve maritime safety and better protect the marine environment from pollution by ships. The revised law therefore:

• extends the scope of the current directive to cover illegal discharges of harmful substances in packaged form, sewage, garbage and discharged waters and residues from exhaust gas cleaning systems
• establishes a strengthened legal framework for administrative penalties and their effective application, enabling national authorities to ensure a dissuasive and consistent imposition of sanctions to ship-source pollution incidents in all European seas
• separates the administrative sanctions regime from the criminal sanctions’ regime enshrined in a new draft environmental crimes directive
• ensures clarity and coherence with international rules and procedures, particularly those of the international convention for the prevention of pollution from ships (MARPOL), in the interest of protection of the marine environment.

DIRECTIVE ON COMPLIANCE WITH FLAG STATE REQUIREMENTS

The directive regulates the enforcement of rules applicable to flag state at the EU level. The responsibility for monitoring the compliance of ships with the International Maritime Organization (IMO) conventions lies with the state where the ship is registered and whose nationality the ship holds: the flag state. The revised directive therefore:

updates the current legislation and aligns it with international rules, mainly regarding the IMO instruments implementation code (‘III code’)
ensures adequate inspections of flagged ships and monitoring oversight of recognized organizations working on behalf of the flag state
ensures a higher uptake of digital solutions
ensures a harmonized approach in the understanding, reporting, and measuring of the performance of flag states’ fleets and duties.

DIRECTIVE ON PORT STATE CONTROL

Port state control (PSC) is a system of inspection of foreign ships in ports of states other than the flag state by PSC officers, to verify that the competency of the master, officers and crew on board, the condition of a ship, and its equipment comply with the requirements of international conventions and, in the EU, with applicable EU law. As such, PSC is important in ensuring maritime safety and in protecting the marine environment. The revised directive:

• updates EU legislation and aligns it with international rules and procedures as set out in the Paris memorandum of understanding (MoU) and IMO conventions,
• protects fishing vessels, their crews, and the environment, including by introducing a voluntary inspections regime for larger fishing vessels (more than 24 meters in length),
• ensures an efficient and harmonized approach to carrying out PSC inspections.

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