Opinion of the Economic and Social Committee on the 'Proposal for a Council Directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships` (97/C 206/19)

On 27 January 1997 the Council decided to consult the Economic and Social Committee, under Article 84 of the Treaty on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for Transport and Communications, which was responsible for preparing the Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 9 April 1997. The rapporteur was Mr Whitworth.

At its 345th plenary session (meeting of 23 April 1997), the Economic and Social Committee adopted the following opinion with 119 votes for, two votes against and seven abstentions.

1. Introduction and Background

1.1. The proposed directive has its origin in the Council Resolution of 22 December 1994 on the safety of roll-on roll-off passenger ferries. Recalling amongst other accidents the capsizing of the ferry 'Estonia` the previous September, the resolution called for Member States and the Commission to support a range of specific activities in the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and invited the Commission to submit proposals for certain mandatory requirements of which the registration of passengers on ferries regularly using EC ports was one.

1.2. Since that date the IMO has developed and adopted certain amendments to the International Convention for the safety of life at sea 1974 (SOLAS). Regulation III/27, entitled information on passengers, adopted last June and applicable to all passenger ships on international voyages lays down requirements for the counting of passengers and the recording of certain information about them. The regulation will enter into force on 1 July 1998.

1.3. The SOLAS Regulation permits certain derogations:

- passenger ships may be exempted if their scheduled voyages render the recording of the information impracticable;

- ships which do not proceed more than 20 miles from land may be exempted if their flag administration considers that the sheltered nature of the voyage renders the requirements unreasonable or unnecessary.

2. The Commission's proposal

2.1. The Commission has based the proposed directive on the new SOLAS Regulation. It proposes that it should be applicable to all passenger ships of whatever flag departing from a port located in a Member State in domestic as well as international voyages. (Certain requirements are also prescribed for ships inbound from ports outside the Community.) The Commission stresses that without such a Directive the SOLAS Regulation would be binding only on flag States and that to ensure its coherent implementation for all passenger ships sailing from EC ports it is necessary to extend jurisdiction over its requirements to port States; it also points out that the latter are responsible for search and rescue (SAR) activities in the event of any casualties.

2.2. The proposed directive requires:

- all persons on board to be counted prior to a vessel's departure and masters to ensure that the numbers do not exceed those for which the vessel has been certified;

- for ships undertaking voyages of more than 20 miles the names, genders, and categories of all passengers, together with any individually notified special needs, to be recorded and communicated within 30 minutes of departure to a designated individual in the company whence it can be made available to the SAR authority as and if required;

- companies to set up a system for such registration which meets certain functional criteria;

- Member States to bring into force regulations for compliance by 1 January 1998 with the registration provisions taking effect by 1 January 1999.

2.3. While under the proposed directive the recording of passenger information is only required for voyages of more than 20 miles there is no provision for derogation on the grounds of impracticability and the grounds for exemption for vessels operating in restricted waters are much more stringent that those in the SOLAS Regulation.

3. General comments

3.1. In broad terms the Committee welcomes the proposal for a Council directive on this matter. It accepts the necessity for Community legislation which is binding on the port state as well as the flag state. It welcomes the fact that the proposed directive is based on IMO decisions as contained in the SOLAS Regulation, this being consistent with the position it has taken in a host of its previous opinions on maritime matters. It accepts that the rules should be equally applicable to ships engaged on domestic as well as international voyages as there is no case for dual safety standards in these areas.

3.2. As to the substance of the directive, it is beyond question that the number of passengers on board should be counted and that masters should be obliged to ensure that they do not exceed the number laid down in the vessel's passenger certificate. The Committee supports these provisions unreservedly though it should not be necessary to introduce a new regulation to ensure that this basic safety requirement is carried out.

3.3. The recording of the names and other details of passengers constitutes a new requirement. The Commission states in a number of instances in its explanatory memorandum that the purpose of this is to facilitate SAR operations. While knowledge of the numbers on board is essential to these and awareness of their categories (adults, children and infants) is helpful, the actual names of passengers only become relevant in the aftermath of a casualty - to enable the company to answer queries from relatives and to aid identification of the dead and injured.

3.4. There can be no doubt that the requirement to record the names of all their passengers will create considerable administrative difficulties for these ferry companies operating intensively scheduled services on routes where a significant number of passengers buy a ticket on a 'turn-up-and-go` basis at the time of embarkation. Current booking practices record the names of drivers but not of passengers and there may be as many as fifty of these in a bus or coach. On certain services it will be difficult to avoid extending embarkation times (with delays to passengers and reduced operational efficiency) even with the use of sophisticated (and costly) electronic equipment.

3.5. The scale of the operation would be vast. The peak season schedules of one single port contain 65 sailings each day to which the recording provisions would apply, with an aggregate total of 63 000 passengers. Each and every such name would have to be ascertained and recorded to be retained for little over one hour before the list was scrapped unless the vessel in question had become a casualty during that period.

3.6. It was undoubtedly with these considerations in mind that the SOLAS regulation contained the derogation on account of impracticability described in paragraph 1.3 above. The Committee suggests that the Commission should give further consideration to such a possibility, perhaps adding a clause to the proposed directive which would permit Member States to sanction an alternative recording arrangement on a particular route where they would judge the requirement to record individual names to be impracticable. Essentially such an arrangement would have to be agreed by both (or all) the port states concerned, be fully compatible with the SOLAS criteria, take full cognizance of the SAR and weather forecasting facilities in the area and not result in any distortion of competition between one scheduled service and another.

3.7. Subject only to this suggestion and the specific comments which follow, the Committee considers that the proposed directive constitutes an appropriate response on the part of the Commission to the new SOLAS Regulation.

4. Specific comments

4.1. Article 4.3

In the penultimate line 'contained in` would be more appropriate than 'referred to in`.

4.2. Article 5.1

Passengers and crew should be counted separately as it is the number of the former which should not exceed the number on the ship's passenger certificate.

4.3. Article 6

It should be made clear, either in this Article or by defining a voyage in Article 2, that the 20-mile threshold applies on a port-to-port basis and not to the aggregate distance involving passages between more than two ports.

4.4. Article 8

As the SOLAS requirement is for the information to be made available to the SAR services when needed, the first sentence of the third paragraph should read:

'The company shall ensure that the information required by this directive can at all times subsequent to the period specified in Article 6, be made immediately available to the designated authority on request.`

It should also be made clear that there is no requirement for the information to be held in documentary form as long as it can be readily transmitted e.g. from a computer.

4.5. Article 11.1(iv)

The requirement that the system must be worked out in such a way that no undue delay is caused to passengers raises the question of practicability discussed in paragraph 3.4 above.

4.6. Article 11.2

This requirement should be deleted. It is for the company to decide the optimum method of compliance in each circumstance, subject to the approval of the Member State.

Brussels, 23 April 1997.

The President of the Economic and Social Committee

Tom JENKINS