Us stated its opposition
Flag-state are highly opposed to European Union (EU) move to introduce mutual recognition of certification for ship machinery.
US stated its opposition at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) meeting last month and a growing number of flag states are ready show their contradiction towards the EU initiative.
The debate is set to be taken forward to next month’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC) meeting.
The opposition centres around concerns that non-EU flag states will have to accept marine equipment that has been approved through a system of mutual certification under which classification societies accept each other’s certification without conducting their own survey. Under the current system, EU wants ship equipment to be individually certified on a case-by-case basis by the same classification society that certifies the hull.
Other countries such as Panama, South Korea, Japan and Liberia are expected to join the US in arguing that accepting mutually certified ship machinery poses a threat to national sovereignty.
It is also believed that mutual recognition will make European ship machinery more competitive and put them at a competitive advantage over Asian rivals.
European Marine Equipment Council president Lars-Gorvell Dahall tells that the EU had the right to promote mutual recognition to protect its own waters. He adds that other flag states had to accept the regional rules of the US, so it is not unusual that other flag states would be affected by EU regulation.
He says the key issue is the inefficiency of the current certification process.
EMEC along with the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) is currently half way through a five-year programme to develop a scheme for the mutual recognition of ship machinery.
