Establishing a “European Maritime Single Window environment”
The last trilogue negotiation on the “European Maritime Single Window environment”,(EMSWe) took place last evening successfully.
Maritime transport operators face a wide range of legal reporting requirements each time a ship arrives in or leaves a port (a port call). The fact that reporting requirements are not harmonised, either between different policy areas within Member States or between Member States, results in a heavy administrative burden on such operators. Over two million port calls are made annually in the EU. Shipping sector staff currently spend an annual total of about 4.6 million hours on reporting.
This Regulation, establishing a EMSWe environment is therefore an important step forward for Member States and for ports throughout the Union.
Our ALDE Shadow, Ms. Gesine MEISSNER succeeded in influencing the negotiations and thanks to her the final agreement contains a full range of provisions tackling the lack of harmonisation between the maritime National Single Windows for ship reporting and the inefficient data-sharing environment in most Member States and within the EU as a whole.
“Our objective was to achieve a certain level of harmonisation between the maritime National Single Windows for ship reporting requirements each time a ship arrives in or leaves a port. Establishing a framework for a technologically neutral, interoperable and interconnected European Maritime Single Window environment is a very important step forward tackling administrative burdens and costs for ports or for maritime transport operators”, she said.
More info: www.alde.eu/news
