REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the exercise of power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission under Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on marine equipment
Date: 2023-11-21
Institutions: Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, European Commission
Subjects: European Commission, delegated legislation, international standard, marine pollution, maritime safety, powers of the institutions (EU), prevention of pollution, safety standard, technical standard, vessel

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   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 21.11.2023  COM(2023) 714 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the exercise of power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission under Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on marine equipment  
 
 
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
THE COUNCIL 

on the exercise of the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission under 
Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on 
marine equipment 

1. 

BACKGROUND 

Article  37(1)  of  Directive  2014/90/EU  of  the  European  Parliament  and  of  the 
Council  of  23  July  2014  on  marine  equipment1  confers  on  the  Commission  the 
power  to  adopt  delegated  acts  subject  to  the  conditions  laid  down  in  the  article. 
Under Article 37(2) of the Directive, the power to adopt delegated acts is conferred 
for  a  period  of  five  years  from  17 September 2014.  The  first  period  ended  on 
17 September 2019.  The  Commission  therefore  adopted  a  report  (COM(2019)34 
final)  as  required  by  Article  37(2)  and  the  delegation  of  power  to  adopt  delegated 
acts was tacitly extended by another five years until 17 September 2024. 

The Commission is authorised in accordance with Article 37 to adopt delegated acts 
referred to in Articles 8, 11, 27 and 36 of the Directive. 

These delegated acts may concern: 

•  Article  8:  the  adoption  of  harmonised  technical  specifications  and  testing 

standards  

➢  in the absence of an international standard and 
➢  due to a serious weakness or anomaly in an existing standard 

for a specific item of marine equipment in exceptional circumstances where 
duly justified by an appropriate analysis and in order to remove a serious and 
unacceptable  threat  to  maritime  safety,  to  health  or  to  the  environment  and 
taking into account any ongoing work at IMO level. 

•  Article 11: the identification of specific items of marine equipment which can 

benefit from an electronic tagging. 

•  Article 27: interim harmonised requirements and testing standards for specific 
items of marine equipment subject to an EU safeguard procedure where the 
non-compliance of the marine equipment is attributed to shortcomings in the 
testing standards. 

•  Article  36:  updates  of  the  references  to  standards  contained  in  Annex  III 
dealing with the requirements to be met by conformity assessment bodies in 
order to become notified bodies (currently EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012 and EN 
ISO/IEC 17025/2005). 

In  accordance  with  Article  37(2)  of  Directive  2014/90/EU,  the  Commission  must 
draw up a  report on the  delegation of power not  later than nine months before the 

1 OJ L 257, 28.08.2014, p. 168. 

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end  of  the  five-year  period.  The  delegation  of  power  is  to  be  tacitly  extended  for 
periods  of  an  identical  duration,  unless  the  European  Parliament  or  the  Council 
opposes such extension not later than three months before the end of each period.  

2. 

COMMISSION  EXERCISE  OF  DELEGATED  POWERS  UNDER  DIRECTIVE  2014/90/EU 
OF  THE  EUROPEAN  PARLIAMENT  AND  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  23  JULY  2014  ON 
MARINE EQUIPMENT  

The Commission has exercised the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on it by 
Directive 2014/90/EU once during the reporting period. 

The adopted act is the Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2021/1206 of 30 April 
2021 amending Annex III to Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and 
of  the  Council  on  marine  equipment  as  regards  the  applicable  standard  for 
laboratories used by conformity assessment bodies for marine equipment. 

It was adopted in accordance with Article 36 of the Marine Equipment Directive.  

In 2017, ISO published a revision to standard EN ISO/IEC 17025 and has withdrawn 
the  previous  version  of  the  standard,  which  could  still  be  used  during  a  three-year 
long transition period ending in November 2020. 

In  point  19  of  Annex  III  to  Directive  2014/90/EU,  the  reference  to  standard  ‘EN 
ISO/IEC  17025:2005’  therefore had to  be  replaced by a reference to  ‘EN ISO/IEC 
17025:2017’. 

3. 

CONCLUSIONS 

The Commission sees the need to extend the empowerment because of the need to 
supplement or amend respective provisions of the Directive to a constantly changing 
list of marine equipment items falling into the scope of the Directive (Article 11), to 
updated international standards linked to the requirements to be met by conformity 
assessment  bodies    (Article  36)  and  in  order  to  remove  serious  and  unacceptable 
threats to maritime safety, to health or to the environment within a short time span 
should this become necessary (Articles 8 and 27). 

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