Reporting Formalities Directive and Trade Facilitation

ESPO views to date, pending questions and suggested way forward

Introduction

At various levels and occasions, the Commission openly states its support towards a European Single Window and its non-satisfaction with the current status quo regarding the implementation of the Reporting Formalities directive (RFD). In line with this, a REFIT exercise on the RFD and the VTMIS directives has been announced to take place in the course of 2016. In turn, 2017 has been characterised by the EC as the Maritime year in terms of launching new legislative initiatives. Finally, the midterm review of the EU Maritime Strategy is expected to be released shortly and will certainly be referring to the RFD and overall facilitation of Maritime Transport.

Given the above developments, it is timely and topical to re-examine our ESPO views on trade facilitation. This paper aims to guide the discussion during the common meeting of the ESPO Trade Facilitation and Marine Affairs committees, 21 March in Lisbon. The aims are to:

  1. Review the ESPO positionson the Reporting Formalities Directive (RFD) and the overall pathway towards enhanced facilitation and simplification of Maritime Transport
  2. Address pending questions and potential inconsistencies arising from these positionsat the various levels
  3. Define a common ESPO vision on the way forward and be prepared to provide input on the forthcoming EC initiatives

ESPO’s vision on administrative simplification

ESPO has established as one of its current priorities the completion of the internal market and the administrative simplification for maritime transport(ESPO response to the White Paper[1],).In addition, ESPO has set up a new Trade Facilitation Committee to reinforce the pro-active and constructive approach towards Trade Facilitation.

ESPO has been seeing the implementation of the RFD as an opportunity for facilitating trade and easing the administrative burden (ESPO position paper on the RFD[2],).ESPO shares the vision of reporting only once and of sharing and re-using data by the relevant authorities and stressed that this requires:

−the agreement and full commitment of the parties involved(all national competent authorities:ports, maritime, customs, health, etc…), and

−full harmonisation and standardisation of all data elements referred to in the annex of Directive 2010/65 (International, EU and national and local data requirements).

National versus European Single Window debate

We have been arguing to date that a European Single Window is currently not a realistic short to medium term target and that the focus should be on the implementation of National Single Windows and on harmonised data reporting requirements.

At the same time, there are clear voices in the Commission that advocate moving towards a European Single Window. The shipping industry (WSC and ECSA) is supporting this.

As ESPO we need to define our view on this more clearly. If we want to maintain a certain reluctance towards a European Single Window then we have to develop a clear reasoning and foresee/propose effective alternatives. If we argue that we want the ESW but that this should be a long term goal, then it would be good to proactively define how we can contribute towards tackling the identified problems and move towards the ESW.

Question 1: What are the concrete problems with the implementation of a European Single Window?

Question 2: How can ESPO contribute to addressing the identified problems?

Some relevant issues and challenges that we have been highlighting to date and are related to the National Vs European single window debate include:

  1. Fulfilling formalities vs operational data

Maritime transport involves calling a port and reporting data for operational purposes at port level. There is often a difference between the information needed to fulfil formalities and the actual information that ports need in order to effectively provide services to the ships while at port.

Essential port data requirements are not always included in the EU directives, IMO FAL forms and/or national legislation (e.g. draft of the vessel) and as such are not “formally” part of the RFD.

Question 3: Are there more examplesof data requested at port level other than the draft of the vessel that are outside the RFD scope?

  • For example, information required to plan for pilotage, tug services, loading services?Specific port requirements due to geographical and nautical reasons?

Question 4: Could ESPOsupport that such information is included to the RFD scope, harmonised and implemented in the Single Windows?

  1. Central NSW system vs multi- entry pointsNSW

As ESPO we have been arguing in favour of the inclusion of existing Port Community Systems as entry points to the NSWs. This has been a commonly agreed principle in the eMSexpert group and as a result, different architectures of the NSWs have been implemented in Europe.

The WSC and ECSA (shipping industry representatives) often raise concerns about those Member States where the NSW integrates multiple entry points (i.e. integrates the PCS or similar systems; e.g. Germany, Spain, France, UK, Netherlands….)

Ports are sometimes reluctant towards getting essential operational information through a centralised system. The main reasons for this relate to the quality and reliability of centrally provided data and to the risk of losing efficiency, flexibility and control that ports has established for their businesses.

Getting data for operational purposes through a central system appears to be feasible as the cases of e.g. Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Finland demonstrate. However, it is also true that a central system is not suitable for all governance and governmental structures existing in Europe.

Furthermore, in the case of existent and well-functioning PCS (with significant investment by the ports) one cannot see the reason for changing a successful system.

Question 5:What are the conditions for achieving trade facilitation while maintaining the different architectures of NSWs in Europe? Do different architectures hamper the development of a ESW?

  • Central NSW systems that are built around the National SafeSeaNet (e.g. Sweden) can of course be more easily linked to each other through SafeSeaNet.
  • …
  1. Simplification and harmonisation of data requirements linked to maritime formalities

The set of data elementsrequired when a ship calls a port is determined by (International, EU, national, local) legislation.The simplification and harmonisation of the reporting formalities was required by the RFD and an assessment of the data requirements at the various levels was undertaken in the dedicated expert group (eMS).

During the RFD implementation process, the data requirements wereassessed forAnnexes A and B(International and EU related requirements). Not all MS approved the eMS outcome in terms of a final data set. In addition,the harmonisation of cargo information didn’t take place (due to disagreements between customs and maritime authorities at various levels).

Furthermore, the eMS group decided not to deal with the harmonisation of the national and local reporting requirements (Annex C).The harmonisation of thesewas left to the Member States to achieve since it would have been a very challenging and time consuming exercise for the eMS group. In some countries, port call reporting requirements and formats have been harmonised at Member State level (e.g. Germany, Ireland, Spain,…)

ESPO believes that country / port specific data requirements should be assessed, harmonised and that any variations should be kept to a minimum. In that sense, all national competent authorities should explain the purpose (added value and real necessity) of any additional data that have to be reported.

It is clear that in order to achieve simplification of reporting, these national data requirements needto be harmonised between the Member States (and between ports) so as to avoid that for instance one port asks the same data with another one but in slightly different format (e.g. crew list).

Question 6: What can be the role of ESPO in facilitating the harmonisation of port call related requirements? To what extent can ESPO be pro-active on that? What can we concretely do?Can ESPO suggest the creation of a port expert group to harmonised port call data at EU level?

  1. Reuse of data for subsequent port calls

From the shipping line perspective, it is difficult to understand why a ship that has reported to one EU port also needs to report the same data to another EU port.

In practice, calling at a port will always require a certain level of reporting as certain things change between port calls and the new data needs to be reported again (e.g. cargo, dangerous cargo, draft, passenger list….). Apart from those elements though, the sharing and re-use information at all levels, between all different authorities at regional and national level and between Member States should be achieved.

  • In principle, the NSWs should be achieving this at Member State level (with the exception of the cargo information where no solution has been found yet).
  • The Commission considers SafeSeaNet to be linking the NSWs and enabling the sharing and re-use of data between the Member States.

Question 7: Where do we stand at the Member States level with sharing and re-using data and avoiding unnecessary duplicated reporting?

Question 8: What do we think about the role of SafeSeaNet as the link between the NSWs?

  • We had issues before with the reliability of data in SSN. Initiatives are ongoing to address this (e.g. HAZMAT reporting guidelines and training)
  • …

The appropriate forum on the way ahead

In 2014, ESPO welcomed the set-up of the e-maritime forum(that was later abolished) as an opportunity for the industry to shape any future developments on e-maritime/trade facilitation. The vision was that the industry was to be strongly represented in that forumthat would function as the platform for the assessment of the ongoing developments (RFD, e-manifest) and the potential formulation of any follow up action plan (short, medium, long term).

However, the thinking of the Commission has changed and the main body that will be shaping up further developments is the SafeSeaNet High Level group. The recently established Digital Transport and Logistics Forum will be having a multimodal approach and will not be addressing the RFD or any maritime specific issues. At the same time the eMS group has also been made inactive (no meetings planned).

Question 9: Should ESPO make a statement that the industry needs to be strongly present in any follow up decisions ahead of the RFD implementation and that therefore an industry focused working group is absolutely necessary?

  • There is the clear risk that the high level group SafeSeaNet High Level Group will go for a centralised view…
  • …

Suggested way forward for ESPO

Depending on the answers on the above questions and the discussions during the meeting ESPO would consider the following actions on the way forward:

  • To state that internal market is priority for ESPO, i.e. achieving overall administrative simplification, including removing customs obstacles to EU goods transported between EU ports.
  • To make a statement about the group that will replace the eMS, that it should have more industry representation (not at EU organisation level but at port expert level) and weigh in the discussions.
  • To bring forward concrete arguments why EU single window is (or is not) realistic in medium term
  • To identifypro-active actions that ESPO can commit to(e.g.exploring the feasibility to harmonise ports’ data requirements across EU ports)

Timing of forthcoming EC initiatives

  • Midterm review of the EU Maritime Strategy –to be released March 2016. Expected to contain more information on the REFIT exercise to follow
  • REFIT exercise on the RFD and VTMIS directives – in the course of 2016
  • Maritime transport year – 2017. Legislative initiatives expected

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