Brussels, 25 April 2023
The Council adopted today a new law to improve stability requirements for the so-called ‘ro-ro’ (roll-on/roll-off) passenger ships, known as ferries. The new directive will play an important role in ensuring the safety of both vessels and their passengers in the EU, in accordance with the new international standards in the field.
‘Ro-ro’ passenger ships provide numerous maritime links within member states, between member states and with third countries. They are therefore of major importance to passenger and freight transport in Europe. The proposal to revise the existing directive originates from maritime accidents, such as the sinking of the ‘Estonia’ in 1994.
The revised directive ensures, as far as possible, consistency with the applicable international standards for the stability of damaged passenger ships recently updated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) under its 2020 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS Convention).
The IMO has recently introduced a new model for assessing the survivability of damaged ‘ro-ro’ passenger ships, as well as new related requirements. However, these new international standards are not completely in line with the requirements already in force in the Union for smaller new vessels. Therefore, the new law maintains a level of safety requirements equivalent to existing Union law for those ships.
The revised directive also aims to strengthen fleet entry requirements within the Union for existing large vessels that have not yet been certified in the Union. The text of the new directive maintains the general purpose of the initial Commission proposal, except for the extension of the transposition deadline from 12 to 18 months.
Next steps
The new directive will be published in the EU’s Official Journal shortly and will enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication. Member states will have 18 months to transpose the directive into their national legislation.
Background information
In the framework of the European Commission’s regulatory fitness and performance programme (REFIT) and better regulation agenda, and as announced in the 2011 white paper on transport, the Commission presented a legislative proposal to amend Directive 2003/25/EC as regards the inclusion of improved stability requirements for ‘ro-ro’ passenger ships and its alignment with stability requirements defined by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on 18 February 2022.
Following interinstitutional negotiations, the two co-legislators reached a provisional political agreement on the file on 6 December 2022.
Source – EU Council