Maritime organisations have urged the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism not to create an EU Level Access Point Interface following its adoption of the Clune Report on the draft Regulation for a European Maritime Single Window Environment.
The vote on 10 January approved introducing an EU-level access point interface, in addition to a new harmonised interface that will be developed at European level for the national single windows, but in a joint statement, the European Association for Forwarding, Transport, Logistics and Customs Services; ECSABA; ESC; the European Maritime Pilots Association; the European Sea Ports Organisation; The Federation of European Private Port Companies and Terminals; and the International Port Community System Association said they “oppose the creation of an EU Common Access Point Interface”.
They “believe that such a system would be against the [European] Commission approach of creating an interoperable environment or 'systems of systems' and would require significant investments from Member States and the private sector with limited, if any, added value for the entire logistics chain”.
Data-harmonisation positive
The group acknowledged that the focus of the report on data-harmonisation is the “right approach”, which it believes will lead to simplified reporting formalities for ships. However, the group stressed it is important to ensure that the harmonised interfaces remain technologically-neutral.
“This will ensure that potential new systems are not rapidly outdated by new developments, while at the same time ensuring industry does not need to needlessly re-invest in regulatory compliance and can instead focus on innovation and improved services,” it said.
Prior to the vote, the ports of Hamburg, Antwerp and Rotterdam strongly urged the Committee to vote against this amendment. They warned that if an additional EU-level access point interface was introduced for ship reporting, “the current availability of reported data will be compromised, causing unnecessary delays and endangering safety and environmental protection in European seaports”.
They added that the level of availability of operational safety data will be reduced and the risk of losing data will be enlarged.
They also said they are strongly in favour of data-standardisation but argue that an extra EU-level access point does not add to this.
