Competences of the European Union and the EU Member States in the IMO (International Maritime Organisation)

Feb 27, 2013 - May 1, 2013

Project description

The objective of the project on IMO issues (International Maritime Organisation) was to clarify whether EU competences are exclusive or shared with the Member States where it concerns aspects of the IMO Code for Recognized Organizations (RO Code) and the Instruments Implementation Code (III Code), and analysing whether EU law is in conformity with these codes. The report sets out under which circumstances it may be assumed that the EU has exclusive competences, and what this means for the two codes that were investigated. As for the question of EU law being in conformity with the codes, several aspects were investigated, notably the scope of Regulation 391/2009 (not limited to ships flying EU flags, according to the European Commission) versus the scope of the draft Code (limiting the possibility for states to set norms to ships flying their own flag), definitions of class and statutory certificates, and Application of classification rules.