LeX-Ray

Action by the Union in the field of maritime and inland waterway transport should aim, among other things, at ensuring a high level of protection for passengers that is comparable with other modes of transport. Moreover, full account should be taken of the requirements of consumer protection in general.

Since the maritime and inland waterway passenger is the weaker party to the transport contract, all passengers should be granted a minimum level of protection. Nothing should prevent carriers from offering contract conditions more favourable for the passenger than the conditions laid down in this Regulation. At the same time, the aim of this Regulation is not to interfere in commercial business-to-business relationships concerning the transport of goods. In particular, agreements between a road haulier and a carrier should not be construed as transport contracts for the purposes of this Regulation and should therefore not give the road haulier or its employees the right to compensation under this Regulation in the case of delays.

The protection of passengers should cover not only passenger services between ports situated in the territory of the Member States, but also passenger services between such ports and ports situated outside the territory of the Member States, taking into account the risk of distortion of competition on the passenger transport market. Therefore the term ‘Union carrier’ should, for the purposes of this Regulation, be interpreted as broadly as possible, but without affecting other legal acts of the Union, such as Regulation 1986/4056 of 22 December 1986 laying down detailed rules for the application of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty to maritime transport ( 3 ) and Regulation 1992/3577 of 7 December 1992 applying the principle of freedom to provide services to maritime transport within Member States (maritime cabotage) ( 4 ) .

The internal market for maritime and inland waterway passenger services should benefit citizens in general. Consequently, disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, whether caused by disability, age or any other factor, should have opportunities for using passenger services and cruises that are comparable to those of other citizens. Disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility have the same rights as all other citizens with regard to free movement, freedom of choice and non-discrimination.

Member States should promote the use of public transport and the use of integrated tickets in order to optimise the use and interoperability of the various transport modes and operators.

In the light of Article 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in order to give disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility opportunities for maritime and inland waterway travel comparable to those of other citizens, rules for non-discrimination and assistance during their journey should be established. Those persons should therefore be accepted for carriage and not refused transport, except for reasons which are justified on the grounds of safety and established by the competent authorities. They should enjoy the right to assistance in ports and on board passenger ships. In the interests of social inclusion, the persons concerned should receive this assistance free of charge. Carriers should establish access conditions, preferably using the European standardisation system.

In deciding on the design of new ports and terminals, and as part of major refurbishments, the bodies responsible for those facilities should take into account the needs of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, in particular with regard to accessibility, paying particular consideration to ‘design for all’ requirements. Carriers should take such needs into account when deciding on the design of new and newly refurbished passenger ships in accordance with LDTRIWVD of 12 December 2006 laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels ( 5 ) and SRSPS2D2 of 6 May 2009 on safety rules and standards for passenger ships ( 6 ) .

Assistance given at ports situated in the territory of a Member State should, among other things, enable disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility to proceed from a designated point of arrival at a port to a passenger ship and from a passenger ship to a designated point of departure at a port, including embarking and disembarking.

In organising assistance to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, and the training of their personnel, carriers should cooperate with organisations representative of disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility. In that work they should also take into account the relevant provisions of the International Convention and Code on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers as well as the Recommendation of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on the design and operation of passenger ships to respond to elderly and disabled persons’ needs.

The provisions governing the embarkation of disabled persons or persons with reduced mobility should be without prejudice to the general provisions applicable to the embarkation of passengers laid down by the international, Union or national rules in force.

Legal acts of the Union on passenger rights should take into account the needs of passengers, in particular those of disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, to use different transport modes and to transfer smoothly between different modes, subject to the applicable safety regulations for the operation of ships.

Passengers should be adequately informed in the event of cancellation or delay of any passenger service or cruise. That information should help passengers to make the necessary arrangements and, if needed, to obtain information about alternative connections.

Inconvenience experienced by passengers due to the cancellation or long delay of their journey should be reduced. To this end, passengers should be adequately looked after and should be able to cancel their journey and have their tickets reimbursed or to obtain re-routing under satisfactory conditions. Adequate accommodation for passengers may not necessarily consist of hotel rooms but also of any other suitable accommodation that is available, depending in particular on the circumstances relating to each specific situation, the passengers’ vehicles and the characteristics of the ship. In this respect and in duly justified cases of extraordinary and urgent circumstances, carriers should be able to take full advantage of the available relevant facilities, in cooperation with civil authorities.

Carriers should provide for the payment of compensation for passengers in the event of the cancellation or delay of a passenger service based on a percentage of the ticket price, except when the cancellation or delay occurs due to weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ship or to extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken.

Carriers should, in accordance with generally accepted principles, bear the burden of proving that the cancellation or delay was caused by such weather conditions or extraordinary circumstances.

Weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ship should include, but not be limited to, strong winds, heavy seas, strong currents, difficult ice conditions and extremely high or low water levels, hurricanes, tornados and floods.

Extraordinary circumstances should include, but not be limited to, natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes, terrorist attacks, wars and military or civil armed conflicts, uprisings, military or illegal confiscations, labour conflicts, landing any sick, injured or dead person, search and rescue operations at sea or on inland waterways, measures necessary to protect the environment, decisions taken by traffic management bodies or port authorities, or decisions by the competent authorities with regard to public order and safety as well as to cover urgent transport needs.

With the involvement of stakeholders, professional associations and associations of customers, passengers, disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, carriers should cooperate in order to adopt arrangements at national or European level for improving care and assistance offered to passengers whenever their travel is interrupted, notably in the event of long delays or cancellation of travel. National enforcement bodies should be informed of those arrangements.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has already ruled that problems leading to cancellations or delays can be covered by the concept of extraordinary circumstances only to the extent that they stem from events which are not inherent in the normal exercise of the activity of the carrier concerned and are beyond its actual control. It should be noted that weather conditions endangering the safe operation of the ship are indeed beyond the actual control of the carrier.

This Regulation should not affect the rights of passengers established by Directive 1990/314 of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours ( 7 ) . This Regulation should not apply in cases where a package tour is cancelled for reasons other than cancellation of the passenger service or the cruise.

Passengers should be fully informed of their rights under this Regulation in formats which are accessible to everybody, so that they can effectively exercise those rights. Rights of passengers should include the receipt of information regarding the passenger service or cruise before and during the journey. All essential information provided to passengers should also be provided in formats accessible to disabled persons and persons with reduced mobility, with such accessible formats allowing passengers to access the same information using, for example, text, Braille, audio, video and/or electronic formats.

Passengers should be able to exercise their rights by means of appropriate and accessible complaint procedures implemented by carriers and terminal operators within their respective areas of competence or, as the case may be, by the submission of complaints to the body or bodies designated to that end by the Member State concerned. Carriers and terminal operators should respond to complaints by passengers within a set period of time, bearing in mind that the non-reaction to a complaint could be held against them.

Taking into account the procedures established by a Member State for the submission of complaints, a complaint concerning assistance in a port or on board a ship should preferably be addressed to the body or bodies designated for the enforcement of this Regulation in the Member State where the port of embarkation is situated and, for passenger services from a third country, where the port of disembarkation is situated.

Member States should ensure compliance with this Regulation and designate a competent body or bodies to carry out supervision and enforcement tasks. This does not affect the rights of passengers to seek legal redress from courts under national law.

The body or bodies designated for the enforcement of this Regulation should be independent of commercial interests. Each Member State should appoint at least one body which, when applicable, should have the power and capability to investigate individual complaints and to facilitate dispute settlement. Passengers should be entitled to receive a substantiated reply from the designated body, within a reasonable period of time. Given the importance of reliable statistics for the enforcement of this Regulation, in particular to ensure coherent application throughout the Union, the reports prepared by those bodies should if possible include statistics on complaints and their outcome.

Member States should lay down penalties applicable to infringements of this Regulation and ensure that those penalties are applied. Those penalties should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.

Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to ensure a high level of protection of and assistance to passengers throughout the Member States and to ensure that economic agents operate under harmonised conditions in the internal market, 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 adopt 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 Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

The enforcement of this Regulation should be based on Regulation 2006/2004 of 27 October 2004 on cooperation between national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws (the Regulation on consumer protection cooperation) ( 8 ) . That Regulation should therefore be amended accordingly.

Directive 1995/46 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 ( 9 ) should be strictly respected and enforced in order to guarantee respect for the privacy of natural and legal persons, and to ensure that the information and reports requested serve solely to fulfil the obligations laid down in this Regulation and are not used to the detriment of such persons.

This Regulation respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in particular by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as referred to in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union,