EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  EUROPEAN COMMISSION 
Brussels, 28.10.2010 
SEC(2010) 1263 final 
  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSMENT 
  
Accompanying document to the Proposal for a Regulation (EU) of the European 
Parliament and of the Council amending Re gulation (EC) No 1406/2002 establishing a 
European Maritime Safety Agency 
COM(2010) 611 
 SEC(2010) 1264 
 
EN 2   EN COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
Summary of the report on the impact asse ssment of the proposal for amending  
Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 establishing a European Maritime Safety Agency 
Lead DG : MOVE 
1. T HE PROCEDURE  
This proposal was part of the Commission' s legislative and work programme for 
2008 (reference 2008/TREN/047 now 2008/MOVE/047). 
Preparations for the impact analysis star ted in 2007. An inter-service steering group 
was established. 
Two different independent sources of expert ise have been used. Firstly, as foreseen 
by Article 22 of the Regulation establishi ng the European Maritime Safety Agency 
(EMSA), EMSA's Administrative Board co mmissioned an external evaluation. On 
the basis of the final evaluation repor t, the Administrative Board adopted 
recommendations in June 2008. Secondly, the Commission serv ices commissioned a 
study under a framework contract for assi stance regarding impact assessments. 
Finally, the EMSA 5-year strategy approve d by the EMSA Administrative Board in 
March 2010 was also taken into account. 
2. T HE PROBLEM  
EMSA was created in 2002 as part of th e second maritime safety package in a 
general effort to improve maritime safety in European waters after a number of maritime accidents, some of them leading to environmental catastrophes in Europe. The Agency started activities in early 2003. The first full year of operations was 
2004. 
The external evaluation confirms that EMSA has filled a gap in the maritime safety 
area in the European Union. Furthermor e, stakeholders consider the EMSA 
Regulation and EMSA itself as highly rele vant. However, the external evaluation 
highlights that EMSA's effectiveness and efficiency can be further improved in a 
number of areas and that some clarificati ons are desirable. Ther efore, two different 
sets of problems need to be tackled: 
1) to which extent the EMSA Regulati on provides the appropriate basis for 
EMSA carrying out its tasks as expe cted by its main stakeholders and 
2) how to deal with a number of governan ce issues which have been experienced 
in the first years of EMSA's existence. 
Without acting, the inconsistency between EMSA's founding Regulation and new EU 
legislation in the area of maritime safety will lead to uncertainties regarding EMSA's tasks and to a lack of visibility in the se nse of "who is doing what?" It is therefore 
necessary to better specify EMSA's tasks a nd to define precisely EMSA's assistance 
to the Commission and the Member States in  the light of various new developments 
 
EN 3   EN (third maritime safety package, integrated  EU maritime policy and here in particular 
maritime surveillance, discussions on a Eu ropean Coastguard service, maritime 
research, the role of the EU in internat ional organisations relevant for maritime 
transport, relations with ne ighbouring countries). It has to be ensured that EMSA 
remains able to meet the legitimate requirement s of its stakeholders also in the future 
in line with the developments in the area of maritime safety. 
The second set of problems to be addresse d in this revision concerns governance 
issues. Experience over the past years ha s shown that some governance provisions 
need to be clarified further in  order to better define the roles and responsibilities of 
the Agency, the Administrative Board, the Member States and the Commission. 
EMSA has currently a double role between on the one  hand, monitoring Member 
States through inspections and visits, and on the othe r hand, providing technical 
assistance, training and maritime support services to the Member States. Furthermore, the Board members representing Member States are faced with a potential conflict of interest. On the one hand, they decide as Board members on 
EMSA's activities and resources, on the other hand they represent national administrations, which are themselves subjec t to visits and inspections by EMSA to 
check the conformity of nati onal regulations and practice with the applicable EU law. 
The problematic character of the underlyi ng provisions requires corrective action. 
3. T
HE OBJECTIVES  
The general policy objective  is to improve maritime safety, maritime security and 
prevention from and response to pollution cau sed by vessels in order to improve the 
safety of European citizens , waters and coastlines.  
The first specific policy objective  is to ensure a better match between EMSA's tasks 
as enshrined in its founding Regulation an d the different elements of the EU 
maritime safety legislation. This may encompass the extension of EMSA's tasks to 
new fields in the areas of maritime safe ty, maritime security, prevention of and 
response to pollution. The s econd specific policy objective  is to clarify the 
governance issues, which have come up in th e first years of EMSA's existence, with 
a view to better identify the responsibilities of the different actors (Agency, 
Administrative Board, Commi ssion, and Member States). Fi nally, the third specific 
policy objective  is to help improving the visibility of the EU at the international 
scene by providing state-of-the -art technical assistance to  Member States and the 
Commission in all areas of the Agency's expertise. 
4. T HE IMPACT ASSESSMENT  
Two separate set of options were considere d, the first set concerns EMSA's tasks and 
the second set concerns EMSA's governance. 
The following options were examined regarding EMSA's tasks: - Option 1: "do nothing" (i.e. l eave Regulation 1406/2002 unchanged); 
- Option 2: "minimal" revision limited to tasks arising from the implementation of 
the third EU maritime safety package; 
 
EN 4   EN - Option 3: "medium" revision encompassing option 2 plus taking ove r a large part of 
the activities of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding in the area of Port State Control (Paris MoU); 
- Option 4: "large" revision encompassing op tion 3 plus new tasks in the areas of 
security, research and general maritime policy.  
From the outset, it was consid ered that opti ons 2 to 4 were not c onflicting options but 
cumulative and that within each of these op tions a number of specific tasks should be 
developed and assessed individually, which c ould lead to the part ial redefinition of 
options. 
Regarding the tasks of the Agency, the likely economic, social and environmental 
impacts of the policy options are limited due to the limited scope of the modifications under consideration. Furthe rmore, it is not possible to quantify 
accurately the impacts of the options under consideration. Indeed, all EMSA's tasks 
are shaped as technical assistance to the Commission and to Member States. The 
contribution of technical assistance to the policy objectives is not measurable with 
the current instruments available. 
No measurable impact in terms of competitiveness of the shipping sector could be 
established for any of the opti ons in terms of costs or bene fits. It is however assumed 
that EMSA's assistance to Member Stat es and the Commissi on would indirectly 
benefit the shipping sector as Member States and the Commission should be in a 
better position to carry out their regulat ory activities. By definition, EMSA's 
technical assistance should create neither administrative burden nor costs for the Member States. While the possible savings expected for Member States are difficult 
to quantify, during stakeholder consulta tions a high number of Member States' 
representatives expected to realise savings at national level from EMSA's extended 
technical assistance. The main economic imp act identified concerns the increase of 
the EMSA budget by the requir ed administrative and opera tional credits in order to 
carry out additional tasks. 
The social impact of all options is margin al. Some indirect positive effects can be 
construed for the safety and the work ing/living conditions of seafarers and 
passengers on board of vessels. 
Regarding the environmental impact, it is  expected that options 2 to 4 provide 
positive environmental impact as the measures under consideration would contribute to safer ships and safer shipping. 
Due to EMSA's current experience in simila r activities, it was concluded that EMSA 
should be either effective or even highly e ffective in carrying out the great majority 
of the potential tasks. These concerns all tasks under options 2 and 3 while under 
option 4 the 2 tasks related to research a nd the 2 tasks related to cooperation with 
neighbouring third countries were rated "fai rly effective" as both would constitute 
rather new areas of activities for the ag ency. Almost all possible new tasks under 
options 2 to 4 present a high added value for the EU. 
When assessing the feasibility of the di fferent options under consideration, the 
Commission services had also to take in to account the availability of budgetary 
 
EN 5   EN means. The financial perspectives up to  2013 do not allow providing the required 
budgetary resources to EMSA in order to carry out all possible and desirable new 
tasks. Therefore, the Commission services had to select amongst the tasks identified in the impact assessment according to thei r relevance and their added value for the 
EU. Meanwhile, EMSA has already been im plementing some of the new tasks on the 
basis of its current Regulation and with its current budgetary means. 
The following options were examin ed regarding EMSA's governance: 
- Option 1: "do nothing" (i.e. l eave Regulation 1406/2002 unchanged); 
- Option 2: revision of the governance issues within the institutional framework of a 
regulatory agency; 
- Option 3: radical revision by transforming the institutional framework in which 
EMSA currently operates. 
The radical solution of option 3 was disregarded at an early stage as the 
administrative costs of the transforma tion were considered disproportionate. 
Furthermore, a splitting of the Agency into  two distinct sub-entities would have 
created unwanted and counterproductive ineffi ciencies. It was thus  decided to keep 
EMSA's character as a so-called "regulator y" agency with a high degree of autonomy 
in a single structure. As it has been assu med that the governance- related aspects of 
the revision would not produce any nega tive impact in economic, social or 
environmental terms, it has been decided to pursue with option 2. Indeed, it would 
not make sense not to address governance i ssues in the course of revising EMSA's 
tasks like option 1 would have required. 
In the light of the on-going inter-institutional deliberations on the EU agency system, 
it was decided at an early st age of the preparation of th e proposal to put aside any 
issue of horizontal nature (for example the structure and the voting rights of the 
Administrative Board) and to concentr ate on the few governance issues which are 
specific to EMSA (for example the orga nisation of inspections of EU Member 
States). The proposal contains thus a limited number of improvements and 
clarifications regarding th e governance of the Agency. 
5. C
ONCLUSION  
The Commission services conclude that opt ion 4 which encompasses as explained 
above options 2 and 3 is the preferred option for the revision of EMSA's tasks, thus ensuring that the Agency will continue to pr ovide valuable technical assistance to the 
Commission and the Member Stat es in all relevant fields of its remit. However, in 
the light of the budgetary situation explaine d in the previous poi nt, the Commission 
services have opted for a more limited appr oach to option 4. Ta king into account the 
aforementioned budgetary situation and the developments and investments already 
undertaken between 2008 and 2011, the cost s of EMSA's further extension are 
limited to 18 additional new posts to be phased in from 2012 to 2014, out of which 6 posts should be provided by EMSA through internal redeployment. The budgetary 
impact is estimated at approximatively 3.9 M EUR for the period 2012-2015.