PURPOSE: to align the Community technical requirements on the advanced standards governing navigation on the Rhine with a view to establishing a single scheme for the entire network of European waterways.
LEGISLATIVE ACT: Directive (EC) No 2006/87 laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels and repealing Council Directive (EEC) No 82/714.
CONTENT: the Council adopted this Directive after approving the amendments passed by the European Parliament at second reading under the codecision procedure.
Work in the Council bodies on the Directive remained at a standstill for a long time because of the issue of admitting craft with Community certificates to navigation on the Rhine. Whereas such a possibility was previously excluded under the rules established by the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine (CCNR), this situation changed when the CCNR adopted a modification of the Mannheim Act (Additional Protocol 7, in force since December 2004), introducing a legal basis for navigation on the Rhine with certificates delivered by bodies other than the CCNR.
The Directive provides for the equivalence of Community inland navigation certificates with certificates issued by the CCNR. It aims to align the Community technical requirements on the advanced standards governing navigation of the Rhine, with a view to establishing a single scheme for the entire network of European waterways. This will further both the free movement of goods and high safety, environmental and social standards. At the same time the harmonisation of technical requirements and the mutual recognition of certificates will improve the conditions for fair competition and establish a genuine level playing field in inland waterway transport in the single market. The Directive will also facilitate the adaptation of technical requirements in the future, by way of a comitology procedure, in the light of technical progress and of developments arising from the work of other international organisations, in particular that of the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine.
The Directive is addressed to the 13 Member States which have inland waterways.
ENTRY INTO FORCE : 30/12/2006.
TRANSPOSITION : 30/12/2008 for Member States having inland waterways.