The ECSA invites the EU to a review of Regolamento on the naval recycling including structures to you authorized from the HK Convention



The association of the European shipowners has been profitable today notices the results of a mission that an own delegation has carried out from the 25 on 27 February past to the situated yards of naval demolition to Alang, in the Indian State of the Gujarat. The scope has been that to estimate with cause cognition which can be the risks and the opportunities in I use it of these plants for the recycling of the ships in the context of the international and European norms, that is to light of the convention "Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Maritime Ships" of the International Organization (IMO) of 2009 and Regolamento n. 1257 on the recycling of the ships adopted from the European Union in 2013 with the attempt to contribute to facilitate ratify it of the international Convention of Hong Kong.

European Regolamento includes a list of systems authorized from the EU to carry out activity recycling of the destined ships and to being obligatorily used for the ships clappers flag of the Member States of the EU, directory who is updated at the end last year(on 17 December 2018). The European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) has remembered that from the 2016 plants of naval demolition, included some in India, they have obtained attested of conformity to the Convention of Hong Kong of 2009 and have asked, up to now without positive outcome, of being enclosed in the list of the yards authorized from the European Union.

To such purpose, and on the escort of the results of the visit carried out to February from own delegates, the association of the European shipowners has emphasized that the Indian structures visited by the representatives of the ECSA, guided from the dispositions of the Convention of Hong Kong and from the perspective of being admitted in the directory of the EU, have demonstrated to have completed in last the three important years progresses in order to improve the standards of the activities of naval recycling and have exhorted the EU to act as promotrice of ulterior progresses offering to these structures subordinates to verification a fair possibility to enter in the directory EU, also because - it has observed the ECSA - the EU would have to apply own principles of sustainable development also in the relations with the Third-country.

About the outcome of the visit to the Indian yards, the European shipowning association has specified that the first criterion that must be satisfied from these structures for being admitted to the directory EU is obviously that of being consistent to requirement of European Regolamento 1257/2013 on the recycling of the ships and, on the base than verified in the course of the mission, the ECSA has explained to have proceeds "a good impression about the feasibility of the inclusion in the directory EU, on condition that they are you anticipate the just mentality, investments and training courses".

For the ECSA, the danger is that the EU, not admitting some Indian yard in the directory of the authorized systems of naval recycling or not offering they it just possibility to be enclosed, contribute to you to stop the completed positive progresses from the Indian yards. The risk moreover, second the European shipowning association, is that the Indian yards reject the EU with the consequent one lacked ratify of the Convention of Hong Kong by India and leaving also the naval fleet of flag EU to be confronted with a field of the recycling of the ships that would turn out inadequate regarding the question.

The danger - it has evidenced the ECSA - is that rather than to go towards the cessation of the activities of naval recycling substandard, these continue to being carried out. For the shipowning association, in best of the cases the associated Indian yards to the Ship Recycling Industries Association (India) they will continue to only head at the certification of conformity to the Convention of Hong Kong and it will so be come to create a double market, with the ships clappers flag of the EU, that they represent about 22% of the world-wide fleet, than could not be recycled in structures certifyd based on the Convention of Hong Kong unless they also are not included in the directory EU. "The ships clappers flag of the EU - it has emphasized the association - will not at the market have the same access of the their concurrent clappers flag of a Country third. Unless they do not change flag dismettendo that of the EU - it has found the ECSA - will endure serious financial disadvantages of order regarding their competitors not pertaining to the EU. The EU will not succeed to establish conditions of parity to total level and it will not have achieved the objective of own Regulations for the recycling of the ships of the EU, that it is that to facilitate inside ratifies it of Hong Kong Convention of the EU and in the Third-country".

According to the ECSA, "the single European Union encouraging and rewarding the structures of southern Asia that satisfy requirement of European Regolamento on the recycling of the ships it can succeed in such a way to promote the ratifiche world-wise of Hong Kong Convention and the development of practical of sustainable recycling of the ships all over the world". The association has found moreover that European Regolamento must be aligned with the Convention of Hong Kong, so as established from article 30 of the same Regulations EU that it previews also to take in consideration the inclusion in the European directory of systems of recycling of the ships authorized from the Convention of Hong Kong to the aim to avoid duplications of job and administrative burdens.