EU to Streamline Maritime Regulatory Compliance

A graphic provided by the new project shows the complexity of current regulations

A new European Union (EU) project aims to simplify regulatory compliance and enforcement for the maritime sector by integrating the regulation systems of national, international, and EU authorities, according to an emailed statement from public relations firm Emmett & Smith.

The three-year project, e-Compliance, will use electronic tools to help vessel operators and authorities understand the various rules that apply to ships in different situations.

"Presently, there are numerous disparate initiatives and projects that address specific aspects of the regulatory domain," said Philipp Lohrmann, project manager for e-Compliance.

"The e-Compliance project will bring these different approaches together, using their most promising aspects in order to increase coherence and efficiency in the world of maritime regulations."

e-Compliance consists of 10 partners including classification societies, shipping companies, and regulatory authorities: BMT Group Ltd, Det Norske Veritas (DNV), Danaos Shipping Co Ltd, INLECOM Systems, The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), TEMIS, Acciona Infraestructuras, PORTIC Barcelona, Norsk Marinteknisk Forskningsinstitutt AS (MARINTEK), and the Maritime Administration of Latvia.

Specific goals for the project include establishing a model for cooperation between regulation setting and enforcement authorities to harmonise port state control and International Maritime Organisation (IMO) rules, modelling and delivering regulations electronically, and providing e-services for more effective controls and inspections.

Roberto Cazzulo, chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS), recently called for the shipping industry to provide data to help ships improve their energy efficiency and comply with IMO emissions rules.