COUNCIL RESOLUTION of 8 June 1993 on a common policy on safe seas

(93/C 271/01)

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,

Reaffirming the conclusions of the extraordinary Council of 25 January 1993, stating the Council's intention to improve maritime safety and to contribute to the prevention of maritime pollution in the seas surrounding the Community through the development and implementation of international standards concerning ships, personnel and navigation procedures and through the development of navigation infrastructures and emergency facilities;

Stressing the role of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and, where appropriate, of the International Labour Organization (ILO) for maritime safety and pollution prevention, in particular through the establishment of standards for vessels, personnel and maritime infrastructures;

Stressing the role of European cooperation within the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on port State control (MOU) for the application of IMO standards;

Calling again upon the Community and its Member States to support and promote further and more coordinated and firm action in the ongoing work at IMO and MOU;

Recognizing the need for intensified action as appropriate at Community or national level to ensure an adequate response to the requirements of maritime safety and the prevention of marine pollution;

Welcoming the Commission communication on 'A common policy on safe seas', including its coherent action programme on priority measures to be taken by the Community and its Member States to enhance maritime safety and pollution prevention,

I

1. NOTES with satisfaction that the objectives and main initiatives outlined in the said communication correspond, to a large extent, to the conclusions of the aforementioned extraordinary Council;

2. FULLY SUPPORTS the objectives of the communication;

3. EMPHASIZES that Community measures in the field of maritime safety and of the prevention of maritime pollution, in particular for the convergent application of IMO standards, should apply in principle to ships of all flags in Community waters, by which is meant waters of the Member States of the Community, in order to protect the Community coast-lines, human life, fauna and flora and other marine resources, and not to jeopardize the competitiveness of the Community fleet, while taking due account of the international nature of shipping;

4. STRESSES in this context that further Community action should be framed on the basis of the following main objectives:

- to strengthen inspection, in particular to reinforce measures concerning standards of operation and measures against substandard crews, and to take measures designed to remove all substandard ships from Community waters,

- to improve the safety of maritime navigation,

- to identify, on the basis of existing legislation and international guidelines, environmentally sensitive areas within the Community and propose to IMO specific measures for them.

II

1. AGREES that the abovementioned main objectives should be implemented while respecting the following priorities for a Community action programme that takes proper account of international conventions and work at IMO, MOU and ILO:

(a) effective and uniform implementation of international rules:

- to develop common criteria for more thorough port State control and to harmonize rules on port State inspection and detention, including the possibility of refusing access to Community ports to ships found to be below internationally agreed standards and which refuse to be upgraded as required and including the possibility of publishing the results of the inspections,

- to identify IMO resolutions considered to be necessary for improving maritime safety of vessels of any flags entering Community waters and to ensure their mandatory application,

- to elaborate common standards for classification societies,

- to harmonize the implementation of IMO standards and the approval procedures for marine equipment,

- to encourage work directed towards the introduction of a Community register (Euros) as a register of high-safety standard ships;

(b) enhanced training and education:

- to develop common standards for minimum training levels of key personnel, including the question of a common language on board Community vessels, as well as of port inspectors and vessel traffic services (VTS) operators;

(c) improvement of maritime infrastructures and of traffic procedures

(i) to identify the need for maritime infrastructures for the protection of environmentally sensitive areas of the Community and to propose to IMO specific measures for them;

(ii) to develop further VTS infrastructures, to harmonize VTS procedures and to impose mandatory ship reporting in certain areas through IMO, where appropriate;

(iii) to adopt, in accordance with Article 13 of the Council Directive concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods, a fuller reporting system;

(iv) to develop the availability and use of reception facilities within the Community;

(v) to devise a European radionavigation plan and, if appropriate, to examine the possibility of introducing a mechanism whereby the costs of providing radionavigational aids are recoverable from users taking account of the international law of the sea;

(vi) to strengthen coordinated Community emergency planning through enhanced responsibility by way of towing and salvage facilities;

(d) civil liability:

- to ratify as soon as possible:

- the 1969 International Convention on civil liability for oil pollution damage (CLC) and the 1971 International Convention on the establishment of an international fund for compensation for oil pollution damage (FUND) where they have not yet been ratified,

- the protocols to the 1969 Liability Convention and to the 1971 Fund Convention, as agreed upon in 1984 and revised in 1992, concerning increased compensation amounts;

- to continue to study the questions of liability for environmental damage including the possibility of a liability and FUND convention covering hazardous and noxious substances;

(e) safety of passenger vessels:

to harmonize criteria for the determination of the number and qualification of lifeboatmen on board passenger ships engaged in short international voyages;

(f) risk assessment:

to consider whether and, if so, how the principles of potential risk assesment developed for other major risks can be applied to the sea transport of freight;

2. APPROVES in principle the establishment of a Committee an Safe Seas, in accordance with Council Decision 87/373/EEC of 13 July 1987 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (1), with the purpose of:

(a) centralizing the duties of Committees, created by the implementation of the aforementioned Decision in existing or future Community legislation, concerning maritime safety matters;

(b) assisting and advising the Commission in all maritime safety matters and matters of prevention or limitation of environmental pollution due to maritime activities;

3. AGREES to a more effective common monitoring of the work of IMO and MOU and the preparation of, or contribution to, a closer coordination of Member States towards a common position in these organizations, achieved through the usual Council procedures.

III

Therefore:

1. WELCOMES the fact that the Commission has presented proposals concerning:

- common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organizations (classification societies) (2),

- the minimum level of training for maritime occupations;

2. URGES the Commission to submit as soon as possible to the Council suggestions for specific action and formal proposals concerning:

- the implementation of Article 13 of the Council Directive concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods,

- criteria for the inspection of ships, including the harmonization of detention rules, and including the possibility of publication of the results of the inspections and refusal of access,

- enforcement, within the Community, of relevant IMO resolutions, in particular:

- IMO resolution A 722(17) on application of tonnage measurement of ballast spaces in segregated ballast tanks (SBT),

- IMO resolution on the IMO identification number for ships;

- a revised proposal on the introduction of a Community register (Euros) also with a view to safety at sea under European flags,

- common safety rules for marine equipment used on board of commercial and passenger vessels,

- safety rules for passenger vessels in domestic voyages,

- a Committee on Safe Seas,

- measures for traffic surveillance and aid, including VTS;

3. COMMITS ITSELF to make every effort to come to conclusions on these suggestions and decide upon proposals before the end of 1993;

4. INVITES the Commission to submit an interim report by the end of 1993;

DECIDES to embark upon, before the end of 1994 and on the basis of a report by the Commission, a revision and update of the objectives and priority action programme of this resolution.

(1) OJ No L 197, 18. 7. 1987, p. 33.

(2) OJ No C 162, 18. 6. 1993, p. 13.