Cutting red tape for ships – provisional agreement with Parliament on maritime single window

The EU is streamlining its ship reporting systems by creating a European maritime single window, which will bring together all reporting formalities associated with a port call. Today, the Romanian presidency and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on this reform, which will significantly reduce the administrative burden on the shipping sector and improve its competitiveness compared to other means of transport. The agreement will now be submitted to member states’ representatives in the Council for endorsement.

The European maritime single window environment will link the existing national maritime single windows together in a coordinated and harmonised way. The reform will improve interoperability between various systems, making it easier to share and reuse data.

The new rules will also encourage digitalisation and application of the once-only principle, so that information reported once can be reused for subsequent port calls within the EU.

Next steps
The presidency will submit today’s agreement to EU ambassadors in a forthcoming meeting of the Council’s Permanent Representatives Committee. The text will then be revised from a legal and linguistic point of view. Lastly, both Parliament and the Council will need to adopt the legal act.
Source: European Council