The Official Journal of the European Union published on August 5th the Common Position adopted by the Council on June 6th with a view to adopting a Directive on port State control. This new Directive will recast Council Directive 95/21/EC of June 19th 1995, which has been amended in several occasions.

The proposal aims at recasting successive amendments to Directive 95/21/EC on Port State Control in a consolidated text and at simplifying or amending certain provisions in order to reinforce the effectiveness and quality of inspections on ships by the port State. Inter alia it strengthens the requirements for the competent administrations and inspectors and provides for a reinforcement of the notification obligation for pilots.

The Community has expressed in the provisions of this draft Directive its concern about shipping casualties and pollution of the seas and coastlines of Member States, as well as on-board living and working conditions.

In order to enhance the dissuasive effect of the Directive, the proposal simplifies and extends the measures to refuse the access to ports of the Member States and provides for the publication of a black list of shipowners and operators.
 
Furthermore, the proposal introduces the principles of a new inspection system, according to which all ships calling at Member States' ports are inspected, based on a risk profile that allows to intensify inspections on high risk ships and to reduce the burden of inspections for quality ships. According to the Commission's proposal, the details of this new system will be introduced through the comitology procedure, once all elements of this mechanism have been established.

In general, the Common Position agreed by the Council pursues the same objectives as the opinion of the European Parliament, which is to replace the the port State control system by a new inspection system that will ensure that a maximum ships entering into a port will be inspected. The new inspection system is based on the work carried out by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control (Paris MOU).

The main issues covered by the Council's Common Position are:

• Scope of the Directive:  the Common Position establishes a new system with a collective inspection objective for the whole Community based on a fair share of the number of inspections among Member States and States within the Paris MOU region, in order to avoid unnecessary inspections which are only justified to meet a percentage threshold of inspections.
• Flexibility mechanisms inspections: the Council (contrary to Parliament's position) would allow to miss a small percentage of inspections, taking into consideration the specific situation of each Member State. Nevertheless, the Council and the European Parliament agree in the need to allow more flexible mechanisms for inspections.
• Access refusal: the Council, as the European Parliament, supports the Commission's proposal to tighten the access refusal measures against substandard ships.
• Reports from pilots: the Council fully supports the Commission's proposal to reinforce the obligation for all pilots, including deep sea pilots on ships bound for a port or in transit, to report apparent anomalies they encounter on  board of ships to the competent authority of the port or coastal State.
• List of companies with a low and very low performance: in order to strengthen the dissuasive effect of the Directive, the Council supports the creation and publication of information on badly performing ship operators.
• Transposition date: the Council believes that the new inspection system should apply at Community level with the entry into force of the recast Directive, but given the complexity of the procedures that are to be put into place allows a transposition period of 36 months.

In certain different issues the Council does not agree with the amendments, as they will impose an administrative burden considered disproportionate. The Council notes the contacts which have already taken place with the European Parliament on this proposal and looks forward to constructive negotiations in order to come quickly to an agreement and  to allow the adoption of the Directive.

The Council has also recetly published its Common Position on the draft Regulation on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations, which will establish the measures to be followed by organisations entrusted with the inspection, survey and certification of ships for compliance with the international conventions.