[pic] | COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES |

Brussels, 1.2.2008

SEC(2008) 144

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT

for the Council Shipping Working party IMO – European Community position to be adopted by the Council on maritime safety issues for the 84th session of the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) meeting in London from 7 to 16 May 2008: request for a new work program item concerning the development of a Code for Recognised Organizations

PURPOSE

This document contains a proposal, for the approval of the Council Shipping Working Party, to request the IMO to include a new item in its work program with a view to developing a Code for Recognized Organizations.

BACKGROUND

On 30 November 2007, the Council and the Commission considered that the objectives of the Community legislation on recognised organisations of enhancing ship safety and preventing marine pollution should also be pursued at international level; and that, therefore, the Member States and the Commission should, seeking the collaboration of other IMO members, propose to the IMO the development of a Code for recognised organisations. The Council and the Commission furthermore outlined the main issues that the future Code should deal with, building on the principles of the ongoing reform of the above mentioned Community legislation (cf. joint statement in annex).

In the opinion of the Commission services, work at the IMO should start as soon as at all possible; therefore a proposal to include this new item in the Organization's work programme should be considered by the Marine Safety Committee (MSC) in its 84th meeting, due to take place in May 2008. It is expected that the Flag State Implementation (FSI) Sub-Committee will be charged with the task to carry out the necessary preparatory work. In such case, given the short time available until its 16th meeting, the Sub-Committee would be likely to hold a preliminary discussion only and to complete work at the 17th meeting, due to take place in 2009.

COMMUNITY INTEREST

Directive 94/57/EC[1] and its subsequent amendments establish a clear exclusive Community competence in this matter.

Proposal

The Commission proposes that MSC 84 should include a new item on the development of a Code for recognised organisations in the work programme and agenda of the FSI Sub-Committee.

Action requested

The Council Shipping Working Party is invited to consider the text in annex with a view to making a Community submission to the IMO on this matter.

ANNEX

INTERNATIONAL MARITIME ORGANIZATION | [pic] | E |

MARITIME SAFETY COMMITTEE 84th session Agenda item 22 | MSC84/22/xx -- January 2008 Original: English |

WORK PROGRAMME

Development of a Code for Recognized Organisations (RO Code)

Submitted by Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the European Commission

SUMMARY |

Executive summary: | This document proposes a new work programme item for the Sub-Committee on Flag State Implementation concerning the development of a Code for Recognized Organizations. |

Strategic Direction: | 2 and 5.3 |

High-level Action: | 2.1.1 and 5.3.1 |

Planned output: | Development of a Code for Recognised Organizations |

Action to be taken: | Paragraph 17 |

Related documents: | Resolutions A.500(XII), A.777(18), A.739(18), A.789(19), A.946(23), A. 948 (23), A.973(24), A.974(24), C 97/7, MSC/Circ.710/MEPC/Circ.307, MSC/Circ.1010/MEPC/Circ.382, MSC-MEPC.1/Circ.1, ISO 9001:2000, ISO/IEC 17020:1998 and ISO/IEC 17021:2006 |

1. The above-mentioned submitting sponsors propose the inclusion of a new agenda item "Development of a Code for Recognised Organisations" in the work programme of the Sub-Committee on Flag State Implementation. This proposal is submitted in accordance with the Guidelines on the organization and method of work of the MSC and the MEPC and their subsidiary bodies (MSC-MEPC.1/Circ 1), section 2.9-2.23 concerning content and formats for proposals for new work programme items

2. It is the responsibility of the Flag State to recognize appropriate organisations, to decide the extent of authorization and to establish or participate in an oversight programme with adequate resources for monitoring of, and communication with, its recognized organization in order to ensure that its international obligations are fully met.

3. In order to meet their responsibilities in recognising, authorizing and monitoring their recognised organizations (ROs), the Administrations apply the existing IMO requirements for recognised organizations. However, these requirements are presently scattered in different IMO instruments, some of which are mandatory under SOLAS XI-1/1[2], [3] whereas others remain recommendatory[4], and at present no audit scheme exists to verify that these requirements are effectively and uniformly implemented.

SCOPE OF THE PROPOSAL

4. A Code for Recognized Organizations should have the objective to a) assist Administrations in meeting their responsibilities in recognising, authorizing and monitoring their recognised organisations; b) to gather all the applicable RO requirements in a single IMO mandatory instrument; and c) to establish a framework to ensure that the recognised organisations are correctly audited by qualified and independent auditors with respect to the Code.

5. In order to achieve the scope as described in the above paragraph 6, a Code for Recognized Organizations should contain:

6. the mandatory requirements to be met by recognized organizations with regards to statutory work;

7. framework and procedures for a mandatory Audit Scheme to verify that a RO meets the requirements in 5.1.

8. From the above it should be clear that a Code for Recognized Organizations should deal with international and mandatory requirements for how a RO shall conduct its statutory work including inter alia general requirements such as independence, impartiality, integrity, competence and responsibility; requirements relating to organisation, management and resources; requirements related to the certification process; requirements related to quality management. It will remain with the individual Member State to decide which organizations the Member State in question wishes to recognize, any further requirements such an RO shall comply with and to which extent the State wishes to authorize the RO to perform statutory work.

9. A Code for Recognized Organizations should aim at replacing all applicable IMO documents containing requirements for recognized organizations and therefore the references to the relevant resolutions in SOLAS, MARPOL and the 1988 Load Lines Protocol should, in due course, be amended to point to such a Code.

Compelling need

10. The description of such a mandatory scheme is foreseen to be compiled into a Code for Recognized Organizations. With such a Code, the Organization would have at its disposal a tool to assist Member States in achieving harmonized and consistent global implementation of relevant IMO standards, which is the key to realizing the IMO objectives of safe, secure and efficient shipping on clean oceans.

11. This would:

12. let the Organization foster global compliance and uniform implementation by Member States,

13. provide Administrations and recognized organizations with a harmonized, transparent, independent mechanism to assist Administrations in assessing and monitoring recognised organisations in an efficient and effective manner

14. reduce the burden on Administrations auditing their recognised organisations.

15. provide an audited Member State under VMSAS with a valuable contribution to an objective assessment of how effectively its authorized recognized organizations implement those mandatory IMO instruments that are covered by the VMSAS and thereby provide clear indication of areas for improvement.

Analysis of the issues involved, having regard to both the costs to the maritime industry, and global legislative and administrative burdens

16. As described above, a Code for Recognized Organizations should contain all applicable requirements for recognized organizations, including the elements of a quality management system used to ensure compliance with the requirements. The requirements in may be further refined according to the scope of RO authorization, which may cover for instance, a limited scope of statutory certification services (e.g. exclusion of ISM, exclusion of Tonnage measurement, etc) or be more general. The scope of authorization assigned to an RO should be determined by the Administration based on its oversight programme including the results of the audits in accordance with the Code for recognised organisations.

17. The auditing in accordance with the requirements given in the Code should be performed under a framework adopted by preferably as part of the Code. The most important characteristic should be its transparency, independence and quality ; particular focus should be placed on the certification of the quality management systems of recognised organisations.

18. The cost to the maritime industry and the legislative burden would be limited. The administrative burden for Administrations may in fact be reduced, as part of the obligations for oversight of the recognized organizations will be harmonized and more efficient.

Benefits that would accrue from the proposal

19. In addition to the benefits mentioned under 9, the experience gained in the implementation of the Code could be systematically fed back into the regulatory process at IMO to help make measurable improvements in the effectiveness of the international regulatory framework of shipping.

Priority and target completion date

20. Given the interest of the development of an RO code, the necessary priority should be assigned with a view to completion in 2010.

Is the subject of the proposal within the scope of IMO’s objectives?

21. Based on the considerations made under paragraphs 9 and 13, the proposed action is fully in line with strategic directions 2 and 5.3

Do adequate industry standards exist?

22. General industry standards for quality management and related issues exist, such as ISO 9000:2000, ISO/IEC 17020:1998 and ISO/IEC 17021:2006. However, to be adequate for this purpose, they need to be tailored and interpreted in a manner relevant to the specific application; in this case, ROs acting on behalf of flag Administrations.

Do the benefits justify the proposed action?

23. The establishment and implementation of a mandatory Code for Recognized Organizations is expected to significantly improve the implementation and enforcement of IMO instruments and indirectly to eliminate substandard shipping; thus it will undoubtedly justify the efforts made in developing and implementing the Code.

Identification of the subsidiary bodies essential to complete the work

24. The FSI Sub-Committee would be the appropriate body to carry out the work. It is expected that at least two sessions will be needed properly to deal with this issue. An correspondence group could be entrusted with this task intersessionally.

Action requested of the Committee

25. The Committee should take into consideration the above issues and to include a new item on Development of a Code for recognised organisations in the work programme and agenda of the SLF Sub-Committee with a target completion date of 2010.

[1] OJ L 319 of 12.12.1994, p. 20

[2] Resolution A.739(18) Guidelines for the Authorization of Organizations Acting on Behalf of the Administration, Resolution A.789(19) Specifications on the Survey and certification functions of Recognized Organizations Acting on Behalf of the Administration

[3] However, only the Member States are responsible under the convention and it falls upon these to ensure compliance through their instrument of authorization and their oversight programme.

[4] Model Agreement for the Authorization of Recognized Organizations Acting on Behalf of the Administration; MSC/Circ.1010/MEPC/Circ.382 Communication of Information on the Authorization of Recognized Organizations (ROs)