Administrative burdens must be removed and reporting formalities on port calls must be digitised. An amendment to the Reporting Formalities Directive will facilitate the life of shipping companies and strengthen maritime transport within the EU, the organisation claimed.
Earlier this year, 13 EU member states, including Denmark in the forefront, urged the EC to present a proposal for revision of the reporting formalities. The proposal was presented on Thursday of this week.
In the proposal, the EC identified three issues in the current legislation - lack of harmonised interfaces, data formats and reporting procedures, it only brings together some of the legal reporting obligations faced by ships, as well as the insufficient sharing and reuse of already reported data.
The proposal minimises the administrative burdens and benefits maritime competitiveness, Danish Shipping said.
"It is very positive that politicians are responsive to addressing the many burdens that the practical national implementation in which the current directive unfortunately has resulted, contrary to the intention. We look forward to take a closer look at the proposal, but for sure, the member states need to be ambitious," said Casper Andersen, director of EU Affairs at Danish Shipping.
“The way in which the directive has been implemented nationally needs to be confronted. It has resulted in a wide variety of different procedures for what and how to report on port operations in EU member states and ports. This is an untenable situation when the ambition of the EU is to make maritime transport more competitive,” he said.