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Directive 2002/6 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 February 2002 on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the Member States of the Community ( 4 ) requires Member States to accept certain standardised forms (FAL forms) in order to facilitate traffic, as defined by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic (FAL Convention), adopted on 9 April 1965, as amended.

For the facilitation of maritime transport and in order to reduce the administrative burdens for shipping companies, the reporting formalities required by legal acts of the Union and by Member States need to be simplified and harmonised to the greatest extent possible. However, this Directive should be without prejudice to the nature and content of the information required, and should not introduce any additional reporting requirements for ships not already under such obligation according to legislation applicable in Member States. It should deal solely with how the information procedures can be simplified and harmonised, and how the information could be gathered more effectively.

The transmission of data required upon arrival in and/or departure from ports under Directive 2000/59 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2000 on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues ( 5 ) , CVTMISD of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2002 establishing a Community vessel traffic monitoring and information system ( 6 ) , ESPFSR of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on enhancing ship and port facility security ( 7 ) , PSCD of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on port State control ( 8 ) , and, where appropriate, the International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code adopted in 1965, with the amendments thereto adopted and having entered into force, covers the information required by FAL forms. Therefore, where that information corresponds to the requirements in the above-mentioned legal acts, FAL forms should be accepted for providing it.

In view of the global dimension of maritime transport, legal acts of the Union must take account of IMO requirements if simplification is to take place.

Member States should deepen the cooperation between the competent authorities, such as their customs, border control, public health and transport authorities in order to continue to simplify and harmonise reporting formalities within the Union and make the most efficient use of electronic data transmission and information exchange systems, with a view to the, as far as possible, simultaneous elimination of barriers to maritime transport and the achievement of a European maritime transport space without barriers.

Detailed statistics on maritime transport should be available to assess the efficiency of and the need for policy measures aiming at facilitating maritime traffic within the Union, taking into account the need not to create unnecessary additional requirements with regard to the collection of statistics by the Member States and to make full use of Eurostat. For the purposes of this Directive, it would be important to collect relevant data concerning ship traffic within the Union and/or ships calling at third country ports or in free zones.

It should be easier for shipping companies to benefit from the status of ‘authorised regular shipping service’ in line with the objective of the Commission communication of 21 January 2009 entitled ‘Communication and action plan with a view to establishing a European maritime transport space without barriers’.

Widespread use should be made of electronic means of data transmission for all reporting formalities as soon as possible and by 1 June 2015 at the latest, building on the international standards developed by the FAL Convention, whenever practicable. In order to streamline and accelerate the transmission of potentially very large amounts of information, electronic formats for reporting formalities should be used, whenever practicable. Within the Union, the provision of information in FAL forms in paper format should be the exception and should be accepted only for a limited period of time. Member States are encouraged to use administrative means, including economic incentives, to promote the use of electronic formats. For the above-mentioned reasons exchange of information between the competent authorities of the Member States should take place electronically. In order to facilitate such a development, electronic systems need to be technically interoperable to a greater extent and as far as possible by the same deadline to ensure the smooth functioning of the European maritime transport space without barriers.

Parties involved in trade and transport should be able to lodge standardised information and documents via an electronic single window to fulfil reporting formalities. Individual data elements should only be submitted once.

The SafeSeaNet systems established at national and Union level should facilitate the reception, exchange and distribution of information between the information systems of Member States on maritime activity. To facilitate maritime transport and to reduce the administrative burdens for maritime transport, the SafeSeaNet system should be interoperable with other systems of the Union for reporting formalities. The SafeSeaNet system should be used for additional exchange of information for the facilitation of maritime transport. Reporting formalities regarding information for solely national purposes should not need to be introduced in the SafeSeaNet system.

When adopting new Union measures, it should be ensured that Member States can maintain the electronic transmission of data and are not required to use paper formats.

The full benefits of electronic data transmission can only be achieved where there is smooth and effective communication between SafeSeaNet, e-Customs and the electronic systems for entering or calling up data. To that end, in order to limit the administrative burdens, recourse should be had in the first instance to the applicable standards.

FAL forms are regularly updated. This Directive should therefore refer to the version of these forms that is currently in force. Any information required by Member States’ legislation which goes beyond the requirements of the FAL Convention should be communicated in a format to be developed on the basis of FAL Convention standards.

This Directive should not affect Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 of 12 October 1992 establishing the Community Customs Code ( 9 ) , Commission Regulation (EEC) No 2454/93 of 2 July 1993 laying down provisions for the implementation of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code ( 10 ) , Regulation 2006/562 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code) ( 11 ) , or national legislation in the area of border control for those Member States which do not apply the Schengen border control acquis , and Regulation 2008/450 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 laying down the Community Customs Code (Modernised Customs Code) ( 12 ) .

In the interest of making the electronic transmission of information standard and for the facilitation of maritime transport, Member States should extend the use of electronic means of transmitting data according to an adequate timetable, and should, in cooperation with the Commission, discuss the possibility of harmonising the use of electronic means of transmitting data. To this end, consideration should be given to the work of the High Level Steering Group for the SafeSeaNet system as regards the SafeSeaNet road map, when adopted, and to the concrete funding requirements and respective allocation of Union financial means for the development of electronic transmission of data.

Ships operating between ports situated in the customs territory of the Union should be exempt from the obligation to send the information referred to in the FAL forms, where the ships do not come from, call at or are headed towards a port situated outside that territory or a free zone subject to type I controls within the meaning of customs legislation, without prejudice to the applicable legal acts of the Union and the information Member States may request in order to protect internal order and security and to enforce customs, fiscal, immigration, environmental or sanitary laws.

Exemptions from administrative formalities should also be permitted on the basis of the ship’s cargo, not merely on the basis of its destination and/or place of departure. This is necessary to ensure that additional formalities for ships that have called at a port in a third country or a free zone are minimised. The Commission should examine this issue within the framework of the report to the European Parliament and the Council on the functioning of this Directive.

A new temporary form should be introduced in order to harmonise the information required for the prior Declaration of Security provided for by ESPFSR.

National language requirements are often an obstacle to the development of the coastal shipping network. The Member States should make all possible efforts to facilitate written and oral communication in maritime traffic between Member States, in accordance with international practice, with a view to finding common means of communication.

The Commission should be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in respect of the Annex to this Directive. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level.

The various legal acts of the Union requiring, for example, pre-notification formalities at the entry into ports, such as PSCD, may impose different time limits for the accomplishment of these pre-notification formalities. The Commission should examine the possibility of shortening and harmonising these time-limits, taking advantage of ongoing progress in electronic data processing in the framework of the report to the European Parliament and the Council on the functioning of this Directive which should contain, if appropriate, a legislative proposal.

Within the framework of the report to the European Parliament and the Council on the functioning of this Directive, the Commission should consider how far the purpose of this Directive, namely the simplification of administrative formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports of the Member States, should be extended to the areas inland of those ports, particularly to river transport, with a view to the quicker and smoother movement of maritime traffic inland and a lasting solution to congestion in and around seaports.

Since the objectives of this Directive, in particular to facilitate maritime transport in a harmonised way across the Union, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale and effects of the action, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may take measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

According to the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, where transposition of a directive is pointless for reasons of geography, this transposition is not mandatory. Therefore, requirements foreseen in this Directive are not relevant for Member States which do not have any ports at which ships falling under the scope of this Directive normally can call.

The measures stipulated in this Directive help achieve the objectives of the Lisbon Agenda.

Access to SafeSeaNet and to other electronic systems should be regulated in order to protect commercial and confidential information and without prejudice to the applicable law on the protection of commercial data and, in respect of personal data, Directive 1995/46 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data ( 13 ) and to Regulation 2001/45 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data ( 14 ) . The Member States and the Union institutions and bodies should pay particular attention to the need to protect commercial and confidential information through appropriate access control systems.

In accordance with point 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making ( 15 ) , Member States are encouraged to draw up, for themselves and in the interest of the Union, their own tables, which will, as far as possible, illustrate the correlation between this Directive and the transposition measures, and to make them public.

In the interest of clarity, Directive 2002/6 should be replaced by this Directive,