Cat-and-mouse game on EU high seas

Date: 18/06/1998

Bruce Barnard
THE European Union's hard-fought and high-profile campaign to enhance safety at sea faces a daunting challenge over the coming months.

Member states are preparing for a cat-and-mouse game to trap the hundreds of ships which will miss the looming deadline for implementing far-reaching new rules.

The International Safety Management Code (ISM), which comes into effect on 1 July, marks a new approach to maritime safety by requiring shipowners to establish management systems onshore to promote shipboard security.

The code lays down some very basic requirements, such as ensuring that instructions and safety procedures are explained to crews in languages they can understand.

The lack of a maritime lingua franca has led to several disasters. The problem is getting worse as cost-cutting western owners hire entire crews from manning agencies in countries ranging from Ukraine, Russia and Poland to the Philippines and India. Officers, on the other hand, are likely to be Greeks, Norwegians or Germans.

Europe will play a key role in ensuring a successful lift-off for the ISM. It is the world's biggest user of shipping services, controls the world's largest fleet and sits astride the world's busiest shipping lane: the English Channel.

It is also still digesting the lessons of its worst maritime disaster since World War II - the sinking of the Estonia in the Baltic Sea in October 1994 with the loss of 852 lives.

Shipowners rate the European Commission's energetic ship safety division highly, but are less sure about the political will of some EU member states to implement its regulations.

The ISM omens are not looking good. Shipowners are scrambling to finalise audits to obtain certification by 1 July, but 20% of the 19,000 ships which must comply will miss the deadline, according to conservative industry guestimates.

From next month, the code will be mandatory for oil, chemical and gas tankers, bulk carriers, passenger ships and high-speed cargo vessels above 500 tons. A further 20,000 vessels, including mobile off-shore drilling rigs, will have to comply by 1 July 2002.

In theory, owners cannot ignore the code, as it has been written into the international convention for safety for life at sea (Solas) which has been adopted by 128 countries accounting for more than 97% of the global fleet.

In practice, there are scores of unscrupulous owners prepared to cut corners and take risks in order to survive in cut-throat freight shipping markets.

Freight rates have plunged to new lows, largely in response to the Asian financial crisis, with the daily charter rate for a 75,000-ton bulk ship from northern Europe to east Asia crashing to 5,000 ecu from 7,300 ecu a year ago. The lack of an ISM certificate is of minor concern to fly-by-night operators.

The authorities have vowed to crack down on the ISM dodgers. Ships lacking ISM certificates will not get insurance cover and will be denied access to the world's top seaports, according to William O'Neil, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in London. "This would effectively mean that their ability to trade freely throughout the world would be severely restricted, which would lead to financial disaster for their owners," he warned.

The 18 signatory nations of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), a regional ship safety group, plan an intensive three-month surveillance of vessels in their waters from 1 July to check for ISM certificates.

Roberto Salvarani, head of the Commission's ship safety division, has warned owners without certificates "not to try their luck in EU ports" and the US Coast Guard says its policy of zero tolerance will deter ships without ISM authorisation from trying to enter American waters.

It has drawn up a blacklist of 60 companies, mainly Greek and some Japanese, whose ships have been seized in foreign ports or have been involved in serious accidents.

But tough talk will not be enough, especially in the EU.

One major loophole is the fact that Antwerp, the European port most favoured by older ships under flags of convenience, inspected only 7% of visiting vessels in 1997, making a mockery of Belgium's commitment to the minimum 25% inspection target set by the Paris MOU.

There are fears that substandard ships barred from EU ports will simply trade in regions where controls are less rigorously applied, and serious concerns that some ISM certificates are not worth the paper they are written on.

The bulk of the ISM audits are being carried out by the classification societies which check ship designs and seaworthiness. Some are being processed by so-called flag states where the vessel is registered. However, some of the smaller, understaffed flags of convenience are subcontracting out audits to companies with no track record in the business.

Japan caused alarm by seeking to water down policing proposals by dropping the threat of detention and restricting access to information on ships failing to comply with ISM.

Shippers of bulk commodities like steel, iron ore, coal, phosphates and grains, who must deal daily with the most 'suspect' sector of the market, are also worried that the EU's high-profile safety campaign has not affected unscrupulous owners.

"The enforcement of high standards in bulk shipping is failing to detect rogue vessels," the European Shippers' Council recently warned Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock.

The council has just launched a voluntary code of best practice to promote 'quality' bulk shipping which calls on shippers to vet owners for compliance with a variety of regulations, including the ISM code.

The code is coming into effect at a time of turmoil in the agencies linked to maritime safety, which are also being squeezed by unprecedented competition within their ranks.

The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), whose 13 members include Lloyds Register of Shipping and the American Bureau of Shipping, suspended the Polish Register two years ago after charges that it had approved ships rejected by another society. The Poles were recently reinstated, but only as associate members alongside the Indian and Croatian societies.

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