Maritime Single Window

Priority: to reduce administrative burden by introducing the Maritime Single Window

Dutch shipowners:

“Electronic maritime notifications by a seagoing vessel on arrival or departure from an EU port should be simplified. A harmonised system should be used, with separate data only having to be submitted once with the EU.”

The implementation process of the new EMSWe Regulation started mid-August 2019 and will take a total of six years. There is still a lot of (implementation) work to complete before 2025. It is important that this implementation process runs smoothly and actually ensures that on-board administrative burdens are reduced and that ships arriving or departing at every EU port can report in the same way and do not have to submit the same reports over and over again within the EU (following the ‘once -only principle’).

KVNR - Niels van de Minkelis - Nautische en Technische zaken - web
Contact

 

Niels van de Minkelis
Technical and Nautical Affairs

+31 6 4824 0287
+31 10 2176 282
minkelis@kvnr.nl

KVNR - Nathan Habers - Public Relations, Crisiscoördinatie en Geopolitiek - web
Press inquiries

 

Nathan Habers
Public Relations


+31 10 2176 264
habers@kvnr.nl

Context

In 2010, with EU Directive 2010/65 on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the Member States (‘MSW Directive’), the EU prescribed that all EU Member States develop an electronic window (Maritime Single Window) for the exchange of maritime formalities.

The purpose of this MSW Directive is to ensure that EU Member States deepen cooperation between relevant authorities such as customs, border control, public health and transport authorities. This is to further simplify and harmonise reporting formalities in the EU and to make the best possible use of electronic data transmission and information exchange systems. This is with the aim of ensuring, as far as possible, the simultaneous removal of obstacles to maritime transport and the creation of a European maritime area without frontiers.

However, the current MSW directive has not, as intended, led to a reduction in the administrative burden on board ships; on the contrary, it has resulted in a sharp increase in recent years. This happened because the various EU member states and their ports were given the freedom to interpret the MSW directive in their own way. To this day, this causes great frustration among captains, crews and ship owners.

After considerable pressure from the shipping sector, the European Commission started a recovery process a few years ago. This eventually led to a new EU regulation 2019/1239 establishing a European maritime one-stop-shop (‘EMSWe Regulation’).

The main objective of this Regulation is ‘to lay down harmonised rules for the provision of the information that is required for port calls, in particular by ensuring that the same data sets can be reported to each maritime National Single Window in the same way. This Regulation also aims to facilitate the transmission of information between declarants, relevant authorities and the providers of port services in the port of call, and other Member States’.

The challenge

The implementation process of the new EMSWe Regulation started mid-August 2019 and will take a total of six years. There is still a lot of (implementation) work to complete before 2025. It is important that this implementation process runs smoothly and actually ensures that on-board administrative burdens are reduced and that ships arriving or departing at every EU port can report in the same way and do not have to submit the same reports over and over again within the EU (following the ‘once -only principle’).

It should also ensure that only essential reporting information is requested from ships and that the number of elements is kept to a minimum, as stipulated in the Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL Convention).

Pending the implementation process, ships should continue to be able to make maritime reports electronically using FAL forms. These are standardised forms, as specified in the Convention on the Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL Convention). Based on Article 7 of the MSW Directive, EU Member States must continue to accept FAL forms, albeit only in electronic form since 1 July 2015.

State of play - 10 October 2023

The new EMSWe regulation was published on 25 July 2019 and entered into force on 15 August 2019.

The new EMSWe regulation will replace the current MSW directive after a six-year implementation process. The current MSW Directive will eventually be formally repealed on 15 August 2025.

On 3 February 2023, Delegated Regulation 2023/205 and Implementing Regulation 2023/204 supplementing the EMWe Regulation were published. The delegated regulation contains the EMWe dataset. The implementing regulation contains the technical specifications, standards and procedures for the EMSWe.