The European technology and shipbuilding industry is calling for the inclusion in the EU ETS of all ships of at least 400 GRT

That the invitation addressed to Parliament and the Council, EU co-legislators, come from T&E is not surprising, given that the association has long supported this expansion of the quota of fleets to be subject to specific legislative measures. A request that, however, was also signed by numerous companies in the maritime industry, in particular from those who deal with shipping technologies, as well as from SEA Europe, the association representing industry European navalmeccanica that in a recent position paper had it the same highlighted the need to broaden the scope of the EU ETS to ships of at least 400 GRT.

The exhortation, with the subscribers who define themselves 'progressive representatives of the maritime sector', is addressed to the European Commission and to the Parliament and the Council of the EU and asks the European co-legislators - explain the signatories - to 'remove loopholes in their shipping proposals' involving ships under 5,000 tonnes gross and offshore and service ships at risk of compromise the decarbonization of shipping". 'In particular - clarify the signatories - we ask that the threshold of gross tonnage for the MVR control regulation, communication and verification, for the ETS Directive on the exchange of emission allowances and for the FuelEU Maritime regulation come reduced to 400 gross tonnage and that offshore vessels and service are included in these rules'.

In the letter to the institutions of the European Union, T&E, SEA Europe and the other signatories explain why, to them warning, most of the shipping must be subjected to these standards, starting from emphasizing that green technologies for the maritime transport sector are now ready and that companies and financial institutions investing in the shipping need predictability to realize their long-term investments.

In addition, according to the signatories, it is necessary to proceed to ensuring a level playing field by ending the subsidisation of fossil fuels. 'Ecological ships - they explain - they will fight to compete commercially until the external costs of burning fossil fuels will be internalized. In this context - they note - the exemptions for smaller ships, ferries and ships offshore turn out to be in fact a subsidy for the fossil fuels and to continue to pollute. Maintenance of subsidies for fossil fuel ships will distort competition and could even incentivise navigation to invest in fossil fuel ships for evade legislation or modify their vessel, and reclassify it below 5,000 GRT."

Referring then to the criticisms for the burdening of the burdens administrative determined by these rules, the signatories of the exhortation they observe that "all the companies of navigation already check their fuel consumption for commercial reasons and this means that the communication of the Emissions will entail a negligible administrative burden. In addition, they recall, Parliament has addressed the concerns. on administrative burdens in the proposal to reduce the control requirements, relating to fuel consumption and type of fuel, for ships of less than 5,000 gross tonnage tonnes'.

In the document, the signatories also point out that exempting smaller ships by emission standards, units which produce 25.8 million tons of CO2, means exempting ships that usually sail closer to the coast. 'The which means - they remark - that the decarbonization of these ships will bring greater benefits to human health than other vessels'.

Finally, noting that European companies are building mainly smaller ships below and above 5,000 GRT, while usually larger ships come built in East Asia and that Europe is also a leader in terms of green technologies such as batteries, hydrogen and technologies wind-assist, the signatories point out that "regulation of smaller vessels would therefore stimulate growth in European ecological maritime transport sector, not least for European shipyards and its equipment sector Maritime. In addition, given the massive and growing demand for ships offshore to support the growth of offshore wind, the Regulation of these ships can accelerate production European green of those ships. The inclusion of all these types of ships in the ETS would lead to a virtuous circle in which the EU reinvests revenues in the green European maritime sector'.

In addition to Transport & Environment and SEA Europe, the letter was signed by ABB, Advanced Wing Systems, Amon Maritime, Amon Offshore, ARENA Ocean Hyway Cluster, Azane Fuel Solutions, Ballard Power Systems, Cape Horn Engineering, Dealfeng New Energy Technology, Drift Energy, EcoClipper, Finocean, Future Proof Shipping, Hexagon Purus, Hyseas Energy, Inkster Marine, Liquiline, Navtek, Neoline Développement, North Ammonia, Norwegian Hydrogen, Sailcargo, Samskip, Shift Clean Energy and Stadt Sjøtrans.