ECSA: Seafarers, Operators Need Less Administrative Burden

European shipowners (ECSA) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) have called for easing the administrative burden that seafarers and ship operators are now facing.

“Crews and companies face a worse situation today than before. Rather than having a single European window, diverging national solutions were developed and even at Member States’ level there is very often no single solution in place,” ECSA said during Digital Transport Days in Tallinn.

The organization added that this led to an increase of the administrative workload and the risk of seafarer fatigue, to the detriment of job satisfaction and smoothness of operations.

The European Commission has now fully grasped the problems around the Reporting Formalities Directive and the urgency to address these. An Impact Assessment on a European Maritime Single Window (EMSW) environment has beeen launched and an ambitious proposal is scheduled to be presented in spring 2018.

“We have the unique chance now to not only rectify things but to improve the administrative procedures applied to maritime transport,” Martin Dorsman, ECSA Secretary General, said.

“We urge all parties to have an open mind. Surely there are reporting requirements that can be dropped, information that can be re-used better and responsibilities of the various actors that can be clarified better. If this assessment is thoroughly done, this will result in a huge reduction of the administrative burden on crew and companies,” Philippe Alfonso, Political Secretary at ETF, concluded.