The Shipping Industry urges Transport Committee MEPs to enhance Maritime Commerce, Working Conditions and Sustainable Transport through adoption of the Clune Report
On Thursday the European Parliament Transport Committee will vote on Deirdre Clune’s report on the draft regulation for a European Maritime Single Window Environment. The World Shipping Council (WSC) and the European Community Shipowners Associations (ECSA), which represent shipowners and maritime carriers that are the principal parties affected by this legislation, strongly support the Commission proposal and the rapporteur’s recommendations, ECSA said in its release.
Currently the shipping industry faces a mosaic of different information requirements and a costly array of differing local IT systems to connect to. These obstacles, which impede the greater use of maritime transport as a sustainable and green transport mode within the EU, would be reduced by the proposed simplifications and efficiencies. The EU Social Partners have also welcomed the positive impact that reducing this administrative burden will have on the working conditions of ships’ crews.
These improvements to the European transport system will only be brought about with an ambitious new Regulation.
WSC and ECSA call upon MEPs to support amendments that ensure a fully Harmonised Maritime Single Window data set (EMSWe) and that new national data elements can only be requested if truly needed.
Secondly, WSC and ECSA call upon MEPs to support maximum harmonisation of the reporting tools, whether the reporting is done via system-to-system connections or by manually submitting the information via a so-called Graphical User Interfaces.
WSC and ECSA stress that the optimum solution for system-to-system reporting would be the establishment of a voluntary system-to-system ‘Common Access Point Interface Module’ at EU level.
WSC and ECSA believe that the EU is on course for significantly improving the efficiency of EU maritime transport. They call on the European Parliament to seize this opportunity with an ambitious report for the building of a genuine EU Maritime Single Window framework.
About ECSA and WSC:
The European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA) was founded in 1965 and represents the national shipowners’ associations of the EU and Norway. The European shipowners control 40% of the global commercial fleet, contribute 140 billion to the EU GDP and provide 2.1 million Europeans with careers both onboard and ashore. ECSA promotes the interests of European shipping so that the industry can best serve European and international trade in a competitive free business environment to the benefit of shippers and consumers.
The World Shipping Council (WSC) is a non‐profit trade association with offices in Brussels, Singapore and Washington, D.C. representing the interests of the international liner shipping industry in public policy and regulatory matters. The WSC’s global membership accounts for more than ninety percent of global liner shipping capacity. Member companies transport annually more than 40 million TEUs of EU export and import cargo, roughly EUR 1.41 trillion worth of goods.