| Author (Corporate) | European Commission |
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| Series Title | COM |
| Series Details | (2012) 772 final (17.12.12) |
| Publication Date | 17/12/2012 |
| Content Type | Policy-making |
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Marine equipment represents a significant fraction of the value of a newly built ship, and its quality and good operation are critical for the safety of the ship and its crew, as well as for the prevention of maritime accidents and pollution of the marine environment. The international maritime safety conventions contain specific requirements for ships to be properly equipped; furthermore they require flag States to ensure that the equipment carried on board ships complies with certain safety construction and performance requirements and to issue the relevant certificates. To that end both the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and the international and European standardization bodies produce testing standards for marine equipment. The IMO develops the convention requirements and the testing standards, and keeps them up to date, by means of a number of instruments such as Codes, Resolutions and Circulars. The international conventions and testing standards leave certain discretion to the flag administrations. Although in general IMO instruments containing requirements and testing standards become mandatory, the IMO tradition to work by consensus may from time to time lead to the adoption of important safety standards for marine equipment by means of nonbinding instruments; for the same reason, some IMO instruments occasionally have exceedingly generous deadlines for their implementation or none at all. In its proposal for a directive on marine equipment, back in 1995, the Commission clearly identified the problems encountered in the Internal Market as a result of this state of affairs and in the absence of EU harmonisation in the marine equipment sector. The Commission noted how harmonisation would lead to the elimination of important administrative barriers and open the internal market to marine equipment certified in the Member States, with significant economies of scale. Council Directive 96/98/EC of 20 December 1996 on marine equipment (MED) thus laid down common rules to eliminate differences in the implementation of international standards by means of a clearly identified set of requirements and uniform certification procedures. Today, these common rules continue to be necessary to achieve a smooth operation of the internal market in the marine equipment sector while ensuring a high level of safety and of environmental protection. Pursuant to Articles 90 and 91 TFEU, the Common Transport Policy (CTP) should contribute to the broader objectives of the Treaties, and hence the free movement of goods, and include measures to ensure the safety of transport. Within the framework of CTP and taking into account the specificities of marine equipment, the general objective of the proposed initiative is twofold: - to enhance the implementation and enforcement mechanisms of the MED, thereby guaranteeing the proper functioning of the internal market for marine equipment while ensuring a high level of safety at sea and prevention of marine pollution; - to simplify the regulatory environment while guaranteeing that IMO requirements are applied and implemented in a harmonised way across the EU, thereby contributing to ensuring that the conditions necessary for the competitiveness of the Union's industry exist pursuant to Article 173 TFEU. |
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| Source Link | Link to Main Source http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2012:0772:FIN:EN:PDF |
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| Countries / Regions | Europe |
