The ICS shares the worries of the DECOY on the unilateral adoption by the EU of regulations on the emissions of co2 of the ships



The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the international association of the shipowners, shares the worries about the probable unilateral adoption by the European Union of a regulation on the emissions of co2 of the ships that are expressed by shipowning association European ECSA (inforMARE and 21 November 2013 on 1° July, 15 October and 24 November 2014).

The ICS has expressed "disappointment and worry because the European Union is about to anticipating the negotiations in course near the International Maritime Organization (IMO) with respect to the collection of the data on the emissions of co2 produced from the ships, adopting unilaterally regional regulations that will so apply to the flag ships not EU as to the ships recorded in the EU. News has been had – it has specified the ICS – than the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the EU commission would have reached an agreement on the text of regulations EU on the monitoring, the reporting and the verification (MRV) of the emissions of co2 of the ships, with the previewed formal adoption for the beginning of the next year".

Emphasizing that the shipowning field "totally supports the development by the IMO of a total system of collection of the data, ICS has found that "imminent adoption of regime communitarian regional, that could not be compatible with all this that is agreed in center IMO, will be able sure to complicate and to even endanger these delicate negotiations". The association has remembered that "the agreement in center IMO will demand the support of the third-country near which is recorded the overwhelming majority of the world-wide fleet, comprised developing countries as China and India, for which ulterior norms on the co2 constitutes a delicate issue politically".

So as the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA), also the fears of the International Chamber Shipping are centralized in particular on the disposition of the European regulations that would impose the shipowners to communicate given relative to the goods transported by their ships, an aspect of the norm that – also second the ICS - "will have to be estimated with particular given attention the suspicion that the attempt is to reach to develop an index of obligatory operating efficiency. This last one – it has observed the international association - could be used from the governments in order to impose pecuniary endorsements to the ships, to prescind from their fuel burnup and the effective emissions of co2, with the risk of a serious distortion of the market".

The ICS has specified "to appreciate absolutely that the regulations proposal EU, than totally will not be put into effect until 2018, previews that the text that it establishes as the field of the shipping will have to supply the data can be modified from the EU commission in order to reflect the final result of an agreement in center IMO. However – it has found the association - it is not clear if the Commission will be truly disposed to realign the norms fully EU with the understanding agreed to international level".

"If it negotiate in center IMO they will have succeeded – the general secretary of the ICS, Peter Hinchliffe has asserted - will be up to the Member States of the European Union to explain that they act in good faith and that the result reached near the IMO will be the produced one of a true reached total agreement through the negotiation rather than the result of an unilateral regional agreement pre-exists".

Remembering that "the shipping it is a total industry that demands total norms, the ICS has evidenced "not to see some reason for which the EU has the necessity to quickly carry so to term this regional regulations when it is not put into effect until 2018". The ICS considers therefore "that it would be much best if the European institutions delayed the definitive single adoption after to the IMO will be given a real possibility to go ahead on the base of the good progresses that has recently completed towards the definition of a total regulation on the collection of the data. The fact that the IMO has already adopted a total regime obligatory of technical and operating measures in order to reduce the emissions of co2 of the marine transport, that they have taken effect in 2013 as a result of modifications to marpol convention – it has concluded the ICS - demonstrates that the organism of the United Nations is absolutely in a position to developing given a total system of collection on the co2".