The EU: maritime safety and pollution control - Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide

Posted -  Tuesday, 14 August 2012 | 16:45 0 - Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide

If the foundation for EU maritime policy is undoubtedly the regulatory framework for the market in maritime transport services, it has rapidly been followed by the adoption of a highly developed regime designed to ensure the safety of maritime operations, not least to reduce and manage pollution of the sea and the environment in general. This third article in a series on EU maritime law and policy summarises the development of this regime which continues to develop to this day and is likely to continue into the future.
Among the reasons behind this development is the fact that, even before the liberalisation process was under way, and as we have already seen in the first article of this series, by reason of its geography and need to import large quantities of oil, Europe was and remains exposed, especially in its Atlantic approaches, to a high risk of catastrophic environmental damage. Unfortunately, on several occasions, starting with the grounding of the Amoco Cadiz in 1978, this risk has turned into a disastrous reality for the EU with important impacts in both the natural and political worlds. It first led to the Council rapidly adopting an action programme on the control and reduction of oil pollution at sea as part of the EU’s then relatively new environmental policy.
The most important concrete result of this programme was the establishment of an EU information system on hydrocarbons discharged at sea permitting, among other things, a co-ordinated response to major incidents. This system has been developed over the years and continues to function in an effective manner1. Also the members states, individually and collectively in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and also through the Paris Memorandum on port State control, agreed in 1982, sought to respond to the challenge. But the sequence of major accidents continued, and once the EU became responsible for the legal regime guaranteeing access for all EU ship operators to trades in all European waters, inevitably the EU itself had to assume its share of responsibility for ensuring maritime safety in those same waters.
First major step
The first major step was taken in 1993 with the adoption by the Commission of a first programme of action to improve maritime safety in its communication on a common policy on safe seas2. The programme was rapidly approved in principle by the Council and the European Parliament and included legislation reflecting international standards on a broad range of subjects including dangerous or polluting goods bound for or leaving Community ports; common rules and standards on classification societies; safety management of roll-on/roll-off passenger ships; safety standards for all passenger ships3; enforcement of seafarers’ working hours; and marine equipment.
But while this programme was still under way, further major accidents involving the Erika in 2000 and the Prestige in 2002 led to the programme’s acceleration, strengthening and amplification. Measures have included reinforcement of rules on port state control and classification societies; accelerated phasing out of single hull tankers; improvements in traffic monitoring; the creation of a European Maritime Safety Agency and stricter rules on compensation and liability, including criminal responsibility. In May 2004, the Commission launched a broad consultation on the need to adopt a new package of legislative measures, which it proposed in November 2005, to complete for the time being the maritime safety framework, including most significantly the responsibilities of flag states. These were adopted, though subject to numerous amendments, in 2009.
Of these measures, all of which are considered in greater detail on the website, two merit particular comment here.
The creation of EMSA
Perhaps the most important innovation resulting from the two oil tanker sinkings was the accelerated creation and functioning of the European Maritime Safety Agency. The arrival on the European scene of such an organisation would add a new dimension to EU maritime activities by giving it the specialized administrative and technical capacity to become involved in the application and further development of its maritime safety regime which the Commission would have almost certainly found impossible to provide on its own.

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