New initiative of European the Economic and Social Committee in order to face the crisis of the European navalmeccanica industry



In the picture of the review in existence by the EU commission of the current discipline of the aids of State to the shipbuilding, whose term expires in the end of this year ( on 4 October 2010), European Economic and Social Committee (CESE) has decided to reexamine its point of view on the aids of State and to revalue the measures that could be located in existence in order to allow with the European ship yards to exit from the crisis. With such objective it has indetto for next 18 April to Danzica a public audition, with beginning to the hours 15,00, to which it will follow a relationship that will evidence the difficulties that grip the European navalmeccanica industry to the aim to speed up the institutions of the European Union to place greater attention to the field.

29th April the CESE, that it is the advisory organ of the EU, had adopted an own opinion on the crisis of the European industry of the shipbuilding ( on 17 March 2010). Below we publish the program of the next encounter on 18 April and the text approved of from the communitarian organism on April 29, 2010.

Draft Programme Gdansk, Poland Exhibition and Congress Center - Room BHP or Duza 18th April 2011
Draft Programme Gdansk, Poland
Exhibition and Congress Center - Room BHP or Duza
18th April 2011

Moderated by Mr Fish, Co of the CCMI
- Introduction -
3:00 p.m.	Opening words from to personality from the City of Gdansk (tbc)
3:15 p.m.	Response from Mr Fish, Co of the CCMI
3:30 p.m.	To statement by to personality from the Ministry of Treasury (tbc)
- Situation in Poland -
3:45 p.m.	The chairman of National Shipbuilding Section of NSZZ "Solidarnosc " Mr Miros ³ aw Piórek - Gdansk Shiprepair Yard "Remontowa" (tbc)
4:10 p.m.	The chairman of the Association of Polish Maritime Industries FORUM OKRÊTOWEMr Piotr Soyka - Gdansk Shiprepair Yard "Remontowa" (tbc)
4:20 p.m.	To representative of "Gdansk Shipyard " Mr Stoklosa, chairman of the board or Mr Aszyk, member of the board (tbc)
4:30 p.m.	General debate
- The other actors in the value chain -
4:50 p.m.	Providers: To statement by to representative of EMEC
5:05 p.m.	Ship owners: To statement by to representative of ECSA
5:25 p.m.	General debate
- Diversification -
5:45 p.m.	Statement on: Off-shore wind turbines (tbc)
6:00 p.m.	Statement on: Ship dismantling in Europe (tbc)
6:15 p.m.	General debate
- Conclusions -
6:45 p.m.	Mr Krzaklewski, rapporteurMr Calvet Chambon, Co-rapporteurLessons learnt from the hearing - Data for the EESC opinion
7:00 p.m.	End of the hearing

Brussels, 29 April 2010



OPINION
of European the economic and social Committee
on the topic
The European naval industry in front of the crisis

___________

Reporter: Marian KRZAKLEWSKI

Correlatore: Enrique CALVET CHAMBON

___________

European the economic and social Committee, in 16 date July 2010, has decided, in compliance with the disposed one of art. the 29, par. 2, of own internal Regulations, to elaborate an initiative opinion on the topic:

The European naval industry in front of the crisis.

The advisory commission for industrial transformations (CCMI), charged to prepare the work of the Committee in matter, has formulated own opinion in date 9 April 2010.

To its 462a plenary session, of 29 28 days and April 2010 (sat on 29 April), European the economic and social Committee has adopted the following one to seem with 168 favorable ballots, 14 contrary ballots and 12 abstentions.

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1.	Conclusions and recommendations
1.1	European the economic and social Committee states with great worry that the European naval industry pours in a situation of deep crisis, characterized from a total absence of new store clerks, from great problems in the financing of the already existing store clerks, from a productive sovraccapacità in the within of the construction of mercantile ships, from an irreversible loss of places of work, with perspectives of ulterior lay-offs, and from a steady increase of the number of failures and liquidations of ship yards and enterprises of the induced one.
1.2	The Committee is convinced that in this critical situation it is necessary to equip itself of an European strategy common for the future of the naval industry in the EU and to coordinate the actions of the Member States in this field. The first elements of such strategy would have to be defined and put in existence within and beyond the half of 2010 and would not have to answer to the more urgent necessity, that they are the following ones:
	to stimulate the question (points 4,1 and 4.1.1 are seen),
	to put on financings (also through the delay beyond 2011 of the discipline for the aids of State to the shipbuilding),
	to guarantee resources in matter of occupation (forms of support in phase of closing of the yards comprised there),
	to fight the lack of fair conditions of competition.
	Such measures would have to avoid to supply incentives negatives, that the competitiveness could hinder.
1.3	Given the lack of a system of commercial norms for the naval field that have binding character all over the world, the Committee considers that it must be asked the Commission to adopt more energetic provisions and incisors for the protection of this strategic field. In front of the lack of an international agreement in the picture of the OCSE, the EU it must adopt direct measurements and it is decided in order protect the European naval field from the treacherous competition.
1.4	Decisive European and the national ones, the social enterprises of the field and parts must as soon as possible adopt measures for the realization of a common project¹, whose political objective is:
	to make so that this highly technological field, than in future could guarantee high levels of sustainable occupation, conserves an industrial and hard competitive base in Europe,
	to avoid myopic choices proceeding to lay-offs in the phases of worsening of the conjuncture, to maintain the places of work and - what equally important - to conserve a highly qualified force job in this strategic field,
	to attribute to detail importance to the environmental considerations and energy efficiency of the marine transport - the European naval industry, and particularly the subsector of the naval equipment, has elevated potential for the improvement of the situation under these two aspects,
	to guarantee the cohesion for how much it concerns the coastal regions threatened in which the naval industry is present,
	to prevent that the productive ability to the naval industry comes down beneath of necessary the critical mass so that in future the EU is able to produce ships,
	to safeguard the European know-how-how in the within of the financing of shipbuilding²,
	to maintain the European competences in the marine field (also in scientific field and higher education),
	to guarantee that the field has of remarkable a growth potential, innovation and expansion in the field of the R&S,
	to clarify that the concrete costs of the actions in course for the field are inferior to those of the inaction (sees the example of USA³).
1.5	The Committee appeals to the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament so that the EU recognizes as strategic and priority objective the maintenance of the necessary critical mass in the field of the construction and naval repair. This is indispensable to the aim of:
	to maintain a control on the progresses and in environmental matters energetic in the field of the transports let alone on the improvement of energy efficiency of these last ones,
	not to lose the meaningful technological contribution of the field to the European industry - contribution that affects also other fields (external economies); once that a yard is closed, it does not come more reopened,
	to for example take advantage of the growth potential future (regarding wind energy), that in Europe it is possible only using the abilities in the field of the shipbuilding,
	to maintain to a sufficient ability to reaction regarding any historical circumstance (in crisis situations every ship represents a strategic element of fight, and this is worth also for the mercantile ships),
	to conserve a qualified force job and a sufficient level of scientific researches advanced in the naval industry - waves to avoid that they child's step totally in not European hands - in fields as the transport, the sustainable increase, the protection of the atmosphere, the technological excellence in the innovation.
1.6	The Committee emphasizes that the loss of the necessary critical mass by the naval field will provoke to the abolition and the closing of the institutes for the formation of the engineers and the technicians, let alone of the vocational schools for specialistic workers. This means that the European Union risks to lose also intellectual the critical mass to advantage of its commercial and political competitors.
1.7	The Committee considers that, analogous to how much it happens for example in other fields (in that automotive one), the Member States would have to undertake efforts common in order to act jointly to European level in order to allow with the field to exceed the crisis applying emergency measures in the short term that hold account of its specificity.
1.7.1	Such measures would have:
	to carry to the inflow of new store clerks how much more quickly possible one,
	to allow, in the phases of unfavorable conjuncture, to maintain to the connection between, on one side, the yards and the enterprises that they cooperate with they and, from the other, the endowed workers of the necessary competences, avoiding so that, because of a fleeting crisis, a potential one of acquaintances goes forever lost.
1.8	Regarding politics in matter of occupation in the naval industry, the Committee considers that in this field the lay-offs must be prevented by all means possible. It must conserve the qualified and competent during the last few years, already devoid workers. In this field the public authorities must create an European common picture that, for all the duration of the crisis, allows the job part-time with the aim to guarantee uniform conditions of competition in Europe and a protection of the accessible occupation to all the threatened workers of lay-off.
1.8.1	This picture must guarantee the maintenance of the places of work and the whereby possible the right let alone purchasing power, of all the workers to the formation and the requalification. The programs of formation and requalification of the workers of the naval industry are necessary for the improvement of their individual competences and the general level of the qualifications in the yards.

Specific recommendations and proposals
1.9	It is necessary to accelerate the actions to European level for a fast substitution of the fleet based on considerations of environmental protection. With this end in view the possibilities deriving from the communitarian discipline of 2008 in matter of aids must be taken advantage of Been about to the protection of the atmosphere. Being priority, the environmental issues would go on a worldwide basis resolved for through of world-wide the marine Organization - a process, this, that it is already in action
1.10	The Member States and the EU would have to face the problem of the sustainable financing of the naval field. It must therefore create, together with the BEAUTIFUL ones, an European instrument for the financing of the shipbuilding one. The field, the decisive politicians and the BEAUTIFUL ones must study in that way to return to the naval industry the deep ones of the BEAUTIFUL ones for the spread of the respectful technologies of the atmosphere and the clean transport accessible.
1.11	It must subject practical the commercial ones of the shipowners to a more rigorous control, waves to avoid that the European and national subsidies are used in order to buy ships produced in ship yards to out of the EU.
1.12	It is necessary to support and to promote a dismantling or modernization (retrofitting) of the old ships that is well-advised under the economic and respectful profile of the atmosphere, and the ship yards that carry out such activities must respect European requirement of quality in matter.
1.13	The Committee supports the initiative Leadership 2015 (LS 2015), as it under investigation offers to all the interested subjects a valid picture for the common elaboration of politics for the field. Such picture would have to be extensive also to other economic fields.
1.13.1	Initiative LS 2015 must moreover develop a dynamic and brave action plan that points to the strengthening of the European naval industry and to the maintenance of the highly qualified places of work, let alone to supply answers to the environmental challenges which such industry is confronted. It is necessary that the proposals elaborated in the picture of initiative LS 2015 are realized everywhere interested, and in particular from the European institutions and the Member States.
1.14	The Committee recommends to the social parts to take advantage of, particularly during the phase of crisis, the possibilities offered from the social dialogue for the elaboration of common strategies for the future. The social dialogue is a platform that allow to introduce ideas and solutions common in the fight in order to win the challenges that interest and will interest the field of the shipbuilding one. In such context, it is also necessary to agree social norms for the workers of the European ship yards and to apply them in concrete terms.
1.14.1	The Committee considers that the application of the principle of the social responsibility of the enterprises would have to contribute to the sustainable development of the field.
1.14.2	The Committee encourages the resource to concrete measures to the aim to maintain to the connection between workers and enterprises during the long periods of sparsity of the question (labour pool, subsidized formation, etc).
1.14.3	It must verify the possibility to temporary assign to the naval field a part of “social” subsidies (FSE³, FESR, bottom of adaptation to the globalization).
1.15	The Committee supports the creation, in the short possible time, of a sector council for the occupation and the competences in the naval industry, in compliance with the new strategy of the Commission that previews the institution of such organs.
1.16	Given the fundamental importance, for survival of the field, the production of ships “efficient greens” and from the energetic point of view, it must head to do so as that the enterprises of shipbuilding, the university or advanced institutes of instruction and the public authorities assure programs of formation and requalification that promote and develop with of ability and competences action to allow an effective transition with levels of lower emissions and to more efficient ships on the energetic plan. The Committee supports the idea to equip to all the workers of the field of “qualifications greens”.
1.16.1	It must use in the field of the naval industry instruments as the European system of credits for the instruction and professional training (ECVET), the European picture of reference for the assurance of quality (EQARF) and the European picture of qualifications (QEQ) in order to favor mobility and to increase to the competitiveness and the productivity.
1.17	It is necessary to ask the naval industry to widen its objectives and its activities (ambient marine, hydroculture, production of off-shore energy, Arctic dimension, etc)
1.18	Analogous, it would have to orient the technological efforts for example (and therefore the scientific researches) also back new fields, strengthening moreover the role of the technological platforms (as Waterbourne) and their mutual collaboration.
1.19	Alla Commissione must ask to increase the support and to accelerate the participations in favor of the marine transport short beam, of the freeways of the sea and ships in a position to lend services in such withins in the respect of European environmental and energetic requirement.
1.20	The Committee considers that, in searching solutions for shipbuilding the European, cannot be omitted to estimate the field of the naval equipment production, to directly connected it. The situation in this field is very better than in the shipbuilding one (also because the interested enterprises can transfer their activity more easy). It is worth it to study the causes of these various situations and to draw conclusions of which it can be considered in the search of good solutions for shipbuilding the European.

	The Committee intends to elaborate a specific relation on this field and its infuence on the shipbuilding field.

2.	Introduction - motivation and objective of the opinion
2.1	European naval industry⁵ suffers particularly of the effects of the current crisis, because of the following factors:
	its requirements specific financial institutions, that they are greater of those of other fields,
	its enormous sensibility to the changes in the world-wide commerce, in which currently a clean tendency to the decrease of the question of shipbuilding is recorded, due in great part to the increase record of the number of mercantile ships in the world, whose surplus decidedly exceeds the increase of the requirements of marine transports,
	the increasing competition, above all by States that, attributing to this field a strategic value, put into effect a political interventionist in favor of the naval industry,
	manifesting itself of the crisis in a moment in which all over the world a strong surplus of the vital physicist regarding the requirements is observed clearly,
	the fact that the crisis has happened in a moment in which many European ship yards they are found in an advanced phase of deep restructure, modernization and technical development - processes whose development is often very painful, as demonstrates the example of the shipbuilding Pole,
	the specificity of the field (great investments, along productive cycle, production of prototypes, does not seriate them, etc), that it involves some unavoidable limitations and, in case of deep crises, forces to adopt the drastic decision to close the plants.
2.2	There is the real risk that the European naval industry loses indispensable critical mass⁶ at the level of productive ability, and of this risk it must consider, estimating the potential damages that such a loss could involve, in the perspective of Europe tomorrow, from economic, social, technological and strategic the point of view.
2.3	It is for these reasons that the Committee has elaborated anticipates to seem, centralized on the specific consequences of the crisis for the naval industry, trying to describe to this problem from the economic, social point of view (occupation, quality of the places of work and regional), technological and strategic impact.
2.4	In it anticipates to seem the Committee proceeds moreover to an analysis and an appraisal of half covered of initiative LS 2015, trying to answer to the following questions: that to make so that such initiative is concluded with a success rather than with a defeat, and in that ways to light update it of the new truths emerged from the economic crisis.

3.	Specific consequences of the crisis for the naval field
3.1	Given the absolute specificity of the naval field, it must emphasize that I accumulate it of the financial problems in this field, for effect is of the permanent problems of financing⁷ is of the current down period of the economic cycle and the renunciation by the investor to finance store clerks already carried out (let alone of the more and more numerous cases of commerce of “second hand " ships ⁸⁾, involves a serious threat, so much more for this industrial section, than as regards financings has always had puts up problems of others.
3.1.1	The European naval field, and above all the subsector of the yards that construct ships of great and medium dimensions, suffers by now also of the lack of uniform conditions of competition and of the practiced treacherous competition from decades from other regions of world⁹. Still, in fact, for this field a system lacks binding commercial norms all over the world. Moreover, the fact cannot be omitted that the crisis has brought to light the productive sovraccapacità of countries that resort inexorably and constantly to the public financing of the national production.
3.1.2	To light of the numerous unfavorable circumstances listed over, whose overlap does not have precedence, the problem with which one meets currently the field it cannot be considered as a simple history case “that is repeated”, but goes dealt as a new and dramatic challenge. It must emphasize that draft of financial difficulties of character, rather than industrial/structural.
3.1.3	However, it is just in the presence of this crisis that anticipates the opportunity to adopt measures that lead to maintain and to assure the indispensable critical mass in order to conserve high technology in this field, than, even though to collapse risk, also carries out always a role key for the marine transport. Unfortunately, in this same phase there is the risk that shipbuilding the European loses such critical mass.
3.2	Manifest the naval industry a characteristic tendency to react behind schedule to the conjunctural resumption. This unfavorable mechanism does so as that the field needs of a support, without which it could endure fatal damages - and this is worth also if the temporary measures of aid already put in existence are suspended prematurely.
3.2.1	In the naval industry verification a typical situation, characterized from the decrease of the activity after a period of boom: draft of a famous phenomenon from many decades in the naval field, and the EU, in its sector policies, would have to anticipate the effects of such economic cycle.
3.3	In discussing the causes and the consequences about the difficult situation in which it pours the field, it is necessary to cite the specific circumstances of countries as for example Poland or Rumania.
	The dramatic existing situation in Poland, manifested with collapse of the production in two great yards to Gdinia and Stettino, is the consequence of accumulateing itself of some ominous circumstances that were not previewed some years ago, as the arrest of the processes of renewal and restructure of the field, mainly as a result of a political decision adopted to horse between 2002 and 2003, and the lacked exploitation positive the economic conjuncture on the European and world-wide market in the 2003-2008s.
3.4	The naval industry represents a strategic section, is in itself is respect to other fields, let alone in occupational terms. This is particularly obvious and worthy of note in period of crisis. This point of view is shared by the Commission and, hopes, by the current presidency of the EU. It must therefore attend and demand from they of the political actions. Unfortunately, up to now it is lacked clearly a support by the majority the Member States with shipbuilding activity of naval.
3.5	The social consequences of the crisis that manifest in the naval industry is a lot important to regional level. The increase of unemployment in the shipbuilding regions and the loss of an important quota the GDP regional can be very more drastic that in other industrial sections, you anticipate a little in all the national territory, for which the actions of support is lead at the level of all the country.
3.6	When a ship yard is closed, usually draft of a definitive closing. The know-how-how and the advanced technology that it represents go then lost in irreversible way. Practically all the produced ones of the naval industry are produced pilot or prototypes, everyone contains varied R&S members. If Europe you renunciation, the future of the respectful transport of the atmosphere and to lowlands carbon emissions, guaranteed from the “cleaned ships”, it will end in other hands, little sure. Moreover, the loss of the critical mass threat to limit the access to the energy and the raw materials South Sea islanders and extracted minerals off-shore.
3.7	Although the subsector of the repair is not in crisis, it could begin to suffer of the competition of the construction yards that change activity passing to the repair. On the other hand, recently purchase cases of () of elements of the productive infrastructure of the yards of construction by yards of repair and the employment has happened rent or, in this context, of groups of coming qualified workers from the yards that have stopped the activity.
3.8	The construction and the repair of ships and I use it, in this within, of equipments and important technologically advance materials are a lot also for the European defense, the strengthening of the protection and safety, the improvement of the environmental conditions and the transfer of the technology to other industrial sections: an important argument, this, in the search of a solution to the current crisis of the field.
3.9	In examining the situation of the naval field, and in particular of the shipbuilding one, cannot be omitted to estimate the field of the naval equipment production, to directly connected it. In Europe the workers occupied in this field are the double quantity of those occupied in the ship yards (excluding from the calculation the workers occupied in the field of the construction of yacht and pleasure crafts, that they are once and means more numerous than those of “traditional” the naval field). The quota the world-wide realized technologically advanced equipment production from the European industry is very greater of that of the shipbuilding one: it is pairs to 36% (against 50% of Asia, whose quota regards produced of inferior class). The situation of the field of the naval equipment is therefore incomparably better than that of the yards.
3.10	It is worth therefore the pain to study the causes of these so various situations and to draw conclusions of which it can be considered in the search of effective solutions for shipbuilding the European. The solutions applied to this field and its natural ties with shipbuilding the naval one can constitute a precious synergy to apply to the entire naval field. At the same time it does not have to underrate the forecasts of a radical worsening of the situation of the European field of the naval equipment in case of loss of shipbuilding necessary the critical mass by the naval one.

4.	Ideas for actions and solutions in front of the current crisis of the field
4.1	He is indispensable and urgent to increase the question of producing and services of the entire field (comprised those of repair there). The Committee considers that with this end in view it must be aimed at the modernization (retrofitting) in ecological sense of the older and less sure ships, but also of the ships “not clean”, through normative instruments and economic incentives.
4.1.1	In order to resolve the problem of the negative situation of the market of this field, the EU and the Member States they could, between the other things, to support/to finance miglioramento/la the ecological and energetic rationalization of the mercantile fleet of the EU, united to the confidence in I subcontract of naval the industrial equipment/.
4.1.2	The European yards would have to be concentrated on the construction of ships that offer a comparative advantage, that is special ships high-quality and to high technology¹⁰.
4.2	Specific instruments in the picture of the so-called “internal” flessicurezza would have to be considered, protect the connection between the workers of the field and their know-how-how in the more unfavorable phase of economic cycle¹¹. They must be supported through negotiate for this purpose in the picture of the social dialogue and previewing destined forms of public aid.
4.2.1	Some structural instruments of support to regional character could be see again and concentrated in the field under investigation. FESR¹² could be a source of financing for some instruments of this type.
4.3	The battle in order to assure fair conditions of competition on the competitive market of the naval construction and the repair it has up to now not been neither serious neither sincere. If it is true that in Europe it must guarantee the free competition, goes also said but that to this field, that must compete with the remainder of the world, it is necessary to guarantee in the EU the same degree of protection that the competitors of the third-country reserve to theirs.
4.3.1	If the naval field must be recognized as strategic field, then the issue of the competition of the third-country must be faced in the same way, for example, than for the automotive field. Nevertheless the last agreement with South Korea does not demand not even the respect, by this country, of its last engagements and those precedence: this is not a serious approach.
4.3.2	South Korea must respect the engagement to apply the “normal prices of market” and to abstain subsidizing the shipbuilding one. This would have to be matter of recommendation for the actions that the Commission will undertake in center OCSE with respect to negotiates for the new agreement in matter of shipbuilding.
4.4	For the future of the field the naval production connected to the defense is important also. In such context the attention must be recalled on the initiatives adopted from the European Agency for the defense, than undoubtedly they open new lease on life. To this end, they go remembered the opportunities offered to this subsector from dual-use technologies.
4.5	It must develop to the possibilities and potentiality of the technological platform Waterborne regarding the naval field in the within of the Seventh program picture of R&S, let alone its synergy with other technological platforms, and in this way preserve the development of a so important weapon as they are, for the naval field, the RSI activities.
4.6	The maintenance of the critical mass of the industry to European level is indispensable if we want to have sure ships, “efficient greens” and from the energetic point of view, that they will affect decisively on the future of the protection of the marine atmosphere, the transport costs in theirs with and on the protection and the maintenance of the European transports connected with energetic supplying (coastal ships, wind platforms, lodgings for the workers on the perforation platforms, systems off-shore, etc) To this is connected also the idea to organize transports short greens (navigation beam, freeways of the sea, etc).
4.6.1	In the communitarian discipline of the aids of been about to the environmental protection [2008/C82/01] it is spoken express about the acquisition of “ships clean”. Such discipline goes put into effect in effective way without useless bureaucracy.
4.7	In front of the current challenges, the entire system of the aids supplied from the programs picture to the fields of production in series would have to be adequate to the requirements of the naval field, guaranteeing that these programs are applied to the shipbuilding one based on the use of advanced technologies, than generally produces to prototypes or small series.
4.8	Regarding the previewed European picture financial for the field, the discipline of the aids of State to shipbuilding¹³, elaborated from the EU commission and adopted in 2003, represents an appropriate instrument and would have to be postponed beyond 2011, so as to assure sure conditions for the innovation. The renewed principles would have to answer better to the specific and current requirements of the field and to assure to this last greater stability.

5.	The initiative Leadership 2015: what to make in order to help the industry in the current situation of crisis and to avoid the failures?
5.1	In 2002-2003, when initiative LS 2015 (2002-2003) is elaborated by the field of the naval industry with the support of the decisive politicians of the EU, the perspectives for shipbuilding the European appeared rather worrisome: the new store clerks were down, and the prices for the construction of new ships, already low, showed a tendency to diminish ulteriorly as a result of the remarkable increase of the productive abilities to the Asian countries.
5.1.1	Today that strategy LS 2015 has reached covered half, the situation in which pours the field is analogous, if not worse - because of the world-wide crisis - than it was not at the moment of the launch of the initiative.
5.1.2	When, 6 years by now, initiative LS 2015 is conceived, its philosophy was based on the confidence in the productive abilities and the potential one of innovation of the European marine industries and on the determination to fight for their future. If such formulation appears still current, the initiative in itself goes instead corrected and adapted to the requirements today, in particular drafting a budget of the period of its activation and application.
5.2	The appraisal of initiative LS 2015 from the point of view of the social parts of the field is the following one:
	a) its greater successes are:
	having carried a change of mentality inside of the field,
	having modified the perception of the field by the decisive ones and the society,
	having adopted a coherent political approach,
	the fact to constitute an initiative of European character,
	having realized concrete progresses in a series of specific withins of participation (innovation, intellectual social dialogue, ownerships, technical principles of the production process);
	b) its main defects are:
	the lacked application some concrete recommendations (LPF¹⁴, financing),
	an insufficient attention for determined issues, which the structure of the field.
5.2.1	In synthesis, the social parts consider that the approach in the long term must be correct with actions of answer to the crisis.
5.3	In the report on the state of the work of initiative LS 2015, published in 2007, the Commission expresses the following one to seem conclusive: “The continuous Commission is convinced that Leadership 2015 to constitute an adequate picture for its relative policies to the naval shipbuilding field. It would have to continue and to accelerate, where possible, above all for how much it concerns the topic of the financing of the ships. It goes also taken note that in numerous fields the ball is wide in the field of the industry (for example for how much concerns the structure of the industry) or the Member States.” The Commission declares moreover that it will maintain its engagement in confronts of the initiative and that it will continue to fight in order to guarantee setting up of best the policy mix to apply at the level of the EU.
5.4	Without nothing to remove neither to the contents neither to the intentions of the aforesaid appraisal, goes clearly said that, at a distance of beyond two years from its drawing up, it is necessary and urgent (in great part also for effect of the changed situation of the field induced from the crisis) to update the initiative and to propose in the program renewed instruments, although the general lines of the more important actions for the field do not seem to have lost their present time.
5.4.1	It recently seems that the main problem in order to carry to term with success initiative LS 2015 is represented by a little effective performance of the planned actions and by its limited infuence in a part of the Member States of the EU, in particular those adhesion.
5.5	Regarding the impact of the initiative on the occupation in the naval field, some atmospheres have expressed rather skeptical appraisals¹⁵, complaining the lacked concrete performance the initiative and emphasizing that its application has only produced changes of essentially qualitative character, regarding the new competences of the workers.



Brussels, 29 April 2010
The President
of European the economic and social Committee

Mario SEPI

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NB: They follow attached.

ATTACHED 1

Terminologico glossary
The President
of European the economic and social Committee

Mario SEPI


*

* *

NB: They follow attached.





ATTACHED 1

Terminologico glossary

The naval industry (comprised the repair and the reconversion) is oriented to the construction of ships of great dimensions (mainly destined to marine navigation) to mercantile commercial use/, let alone of military ships. The section regards moreover produced and services for the construction, the reconversion and the maintenance of the boats (destined is to the marine navigation that to that in internal waters) ¹⁶. In the within of the naval field two fundamental subsectors¹⁷ can be distinguished:
- construction
- equipment

The shipbuilding comprises the construction, repair (and reconversion) of ships and interests mainly the great mercantile ships for marine navigation. The category of the megayacht re-enters in this within also.

The naval equipment comprises all produced and the necessary services for the construction, the reconversion and the maintenance of the ships (for marine navigation or in internal waters) and of the marine structures. The technical services in the within of the planning, installation, armament, management and maintenance of the ships re-enter in this subsector also (comprised repair) ¹⁸ there.


Facts and figures

Ship yards

In Europe they exist about 150 great ship yards, of which about 40 assets on the world-wide market of the great mercantile ships for marine navigation. The ship yards (for the construction and repair of ships to civil and military use) occupy some 120.000 people in the European Union directly. Europe stops a quota pairs to about 15% of the market. It is still in a position to competing for the world-wide leadership with the countries of Asia oriental regarding the value of the ships to civil use constructed (15 billion EUR in 2007) 19.

Naval equipment

Esteem that the field of the naval equipment occupies directly beyond 287.000 people and assures other 436.000 places of job indirectly approximately. The annual volume of transactions of the field for 2008 is estimated to about 42 billion EUR20. About 46% of the production it is destined to the export. Draft of the third marine field more important after the transports and the pesca21.


ATTACHED 2
to
OPINION
of European the economic and social Committee
ATTACHED 2
to
OPINION
of European the economic and social Committee

The following amendment, that it has at least obtained a quarter of the expressed ballots, is rejected in the course of the deliberations:

Point 1.11

To suppress the point:

It must subject practical the commercial ones of the shipowners to a more rigorous control, waves to avoid that the European and national subsidies are used in order to buy ships produced in ship yards to out of the EU.

Outcome:
Favorable ballots: 65
Contrary ballots: 108
Abstentions: 18
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¹	A project, elaborated in reaction to the crisis situation, already is introduced to the reunion of the representatives of high level in the picture of the initiative Leadership 2015.
²	Up to now Europe has dominated the markets of the credit for the shipbuilding. In order to safeguard and to widen this know-how-how, it is necessary to create an European system of guarantee that allows with the ship yards to assure the financing of the existing and future store clerks. Europe must ulteriorly maintain and develop its role central of financing of the naval industry.
³	In the United States the effect - on the business plan - of the loss of such critical mass has been, after the crisis of the field, an increase of the costs of the construction of new ships pairs to 300%.
⁴	European Social Fund.
⁵	For the definition of this term the glossary in attached is seen to anticipates opinion.
⁶	Draft of the minimal level of total production in the yards of the Member States of the EU necessary in order to preserve the operation of the naval field on the European territory.
⁷	According to the Committee of connection of the naval constructors of the European Union (CESA), it has always had “puts up problems of financing which had to the smaller profit margins”.
⁸	The naval sovraccapacità decidedly exceeds the increase of the requirements of marine transports; If placed behind the other, the ships of new construction would form a long row 60 miles nautical (source: Bloomberg and Clarkson Research Services).
⁹	The opinions of CCMI the legacies to i problems of the treacherous competition are seen: CCMI/002, CCMI/029, CCMI/054.
¹⁰	Without to expect of being exaustive, we can cite the following types of ships: ships fleeting, cruise ships, yacht, pleasure crafts, destined ships of service, ships for the transport of motors vehicle, to chimichiere, to metaniere and to gassiere, ships offshore, ships icebreaker, ship-hotel, ships fishing patrol, tugs to the activities of support of oil platforms offshore (AHTS), platforms of perforation, wind farms offshore, polyvalent ships to military use, ships with dual-use technology, cargo ships, tugs and ships from search.
¹¹	The phase, that is, in which the effects of the crisis minimal amount of store clerks is added to the “depression” of the economic cycle ().
¹²	European Fund for Regional Development.
¹³	GU C 317 of the 30.12.2003, p. 11.
¹⁴	Leadership Platform Financing.
¹⁵	Appraisal of the effect of the initiative Leadership 2015 on the occupation in the naval industry, presentation by Jerzy Bielinski and Renata Ploska of the University of Danzica (Poland).
¹⁶	http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/maritime/index_it.htm
¹⁷	ECORYS, Study on the Competitiveness of the European Shipbuilding Industry, Rotterdam, October 2009.
¹⁸	http://www.emec.eu/marine_equipment/index.asp
¹⁹	http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/maritime/index_it.htm
²⁰	Members of the EMEC (European Maritime Equipment Council - European Council for the marine equipment: Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Norway Low Countries, Poland, Sweden and Turkey.
²¹	http://www.emec.eu/marine_equipment/index.asp