Adoption of the Third Maritime Safety Package

The third maritime safety package was adopted by the European Parliament on 11 March 2009. With the adoption of the first two legislative packages on maritime safety (the so-called ERIKA I and II packages), the EU delivered a strong message that substandard shipping would no longer be tolerated. In 2005, however, it was clear that much remained to be done and that one should not wait for the next catastrophe to happen.

The third maritime safety package came into being in November 2005, with the main objective of restoring the competitiveness of the sector while benefiting only those operators who respect the safety standards, in particular by increasing the pressure on owners of sub-standard ships.

More than three years later, with the adoption of the measures proposed in the third maritime safety package, an important step has been achieved both on the improvement of the effectiveness of existing measures to prevent accidents and on the management of their consequences if the worse were to happen.

The package includes two Regulations and six Directives to be transposed between November 2010 and January 2012.

Details of the measures adopted

Topic	Legislation
Quality of flags	DIRECTIVE 2009/21/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on compliance with flag State requirements	summary [9 KB]
Classification societies	REGULATION (EC) No 391/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations DIRECTIVE 2009/15/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations and for the relevant activities of maritime administrations summary	summary [10 KB]
Port state control	DIRECTIVE 2009/16/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on port State control	summary [11 KB]
Traffic Monitoring	DIRECTIVE 2009/17/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 amending Directive 2002/59/EC establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system	summary [17 KB]
Accident investigation	DIRECTIVE 2009/18/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 establishing the fundamental principles governing the investigation of accidents in the maritime transport sector and amending Council Directive 1999/35/EC and Directive 2002/59/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council	summary [14 KB]
Liability of carriers (Athens convention)	REGULATION (EC) No 392/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on the liability of carriers of passengers by sea in the event of accidents	summary [10 KB]
Insurance	DIRECTIVE 2009/20/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on the insurance of shipowners for maritime claims	summary [11 KB]