Inland waterway vessels: technical requirements

The Committee on Transport and Tourism adopted the recommendation for second reading contained in the report by Ivo BELET (EPP, BE) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels and repealing Directive 2006/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.

The committee recommended that Parliament approve the Council position in first reading.

Parliament’s priorities: in the explanatory statement accompanying the recommendation, it was recalled that Parliament was in favour of:

• a uniform application of common technical requirements for inland waterway vessels in the European Union in view of ensuring a high level of safety and efficiency in inland navigation;
• a swift adaptation of standards to scientific and technical progress taking into account standards developed by international organisations, in particular by CESNI (European Committee for drawing up standards in inland navigation) to be established within the auspices of the Central Commission for the navigation on the Rhine.

Parliament also asked for:

• a periodic three-year review of the Directive to assess the mechanisms of cooperation with the international organisations concerned;
• the adoption of delegated acts to introduce technical requirements for vessels powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) in order to ensure coherence with other pieces of EU legislation, in particular with Directive 2014/94/EU on the deployment of alternative fuels.

Main results: Parliament and Council agreed on the overall aim of the directive, which is to provide a harmonised and coherent framework to ensure the same level of safety for inland waterway vessels. The two institutions both supported a rationalisation of the use of resources to develop technical standards and adapt them to scientific and technical progress making use of standards developed by international organisations in particular CESNI.

On the question of how to adapt the annexes to technical standards. Parliament could not support the use of a dynamic reference to automatically adapt the annex to the Directive to a European standard developed within CESNI. Such dynamic reference would have given an exclusive decision power to the Council, by-passing the prerogatives of the Parliament as co-legislator Parliament considered it important that the adaptation of the technical standards through the adoption of delegated acts is maintained. It should also be noted that the cooperation mechanism with CESNI will have to be reviewed within five years.