The purpose of this Directive shall be to enhance safety at sea and the prevention of marine pollution through the uniform application of the relevant international instruments relating to equipment listed in Annex A to be placed on board ships for which safety certificates are issued by or on behalf of Member States pursuant to international conventions and to ensure the free movement of such equipment within the Community.
Council Directive 96/98/EC of 20 December 1996 on marine equipment
Council Directive 96/98/EC of 20 December 1996 on marine equipment
THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 84 (2) thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission(1),
Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee(2),
Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 189c of the Treaty(3),
(1) Whereas within the framework of the common transport policy further measures must be adopted to ensure safety in maritime transport;
Whereas shipping accidents are a matter of serious concern to the Community, in particular those that cause loss of human life and pollution of the Member States' seas and coastlines;
Whereas the risk of shipping accidents can be effectively reduced by means of common standards that ensure high safety levels in the performance of the equipment carried on board ships; whereas testing standards and testing methods can have great influence on the future performance of equipment;
Whereas international conventions require flag States to ensure that the equipment carried on board ships complies with certain safety requirements and to issue the relevant certificates; whereas to that end testing standards for certain types of marine equipment have been developed by the international standardization bodies and by the International Maritime Organization (IMO); whereas the national testing standards implementing the international standards leave a margin of discretion certification authorities, which themselves have different levels of qualifications and experience; whereas that leads to varying levels of safety for products which the competent national authorities have certified as complying with the relevant international safety standards and to great reluctance on the part of Member States to accept that without further verification ships flying their flags carry equipment approved by other Member States;
Whereas common rules must be laid down to eliminate differences in the implementation of international standards; whereas such common rules will result in the elimination of unnecessary costs and administrative procedures relating to the approval of equipment, the improvement of operating conditions and of the competitive position of Community shipping and the elimination of technical barriers to trade by means of the mark of conformity affixed to equipment;
Whereas in its resolution of 8 June 1993 on a common policy on safe seas(4) the Council urged the Commission to submit proposals for harmonizing the implementation of IMO standards and the procedures for the approval of marine equipment;
Whereas action at Community level is the only possible way of achieving such harmonization, since Member States acting independently or through international organizations cannot establish the same level of safety performance in equipment;
Whereas a Council Directive is the appropriate legal instrument as it provides a framework for uniform and compulsory application of the international testing standards by Member States;
Whereas it is appropriate in the first place to address equipment the carriage of which on board ship and the approval of which by national administrations in accordance with safety standards laid down in international conventions or resolutions is mandatory under the main international conventions;
Whereas there are various Directives that ensure the free movement of certain products which could be used inter alia, as equipment on board ships but which do not concern the Member States' certification of equipment in accordance with the relevant international conventions; whereas equipment to be placed on board ships must therefore be regulated exclusively by new common rules;
Whereas new testing standards must be laid down, preferably at international level, for equipment for which such standards do not already exist or are not sufficiently detailed;
Whereas Member States should ensure that the notified bodies that assess the compliance of equipment with testing standards are independent, efficient and professionally competent to carry out their tasks;
Whereas compliance with international testing standards can best be demonstrated by means of conformity-assessment procedures such as those laid down in Council Decision 93/465/EEC of 22 July 1993 concerning the modules for the various phases of the conformity-assessment procedures and the rules for the affixing and use of the CE conformity marking, which are intended to be used in the technical harmonization Directives(5);
Whereas nothing in this Directive restricts the right granted to a flag State administration by international conventions to carry out operational-performance tests on board a ship for which it has issued a safety certificate, provided such tests do not duplicate the conformity-assessment procedures;
Whereas equipment covered by this Directive should, as a general rule, bear a mark to indicate its compliance with the requirement of this Directive;
Whereas Member States may in certain cases take provisional measures to limit or prohibit the use of equipment bearing the mark of conformity;
Whereas the use of equipment not bearing the mark of conformity may be allowed in exceptional circumstances;
Whereas a simplified procedure involving a regulatory committee must be followed for the amendment of this Directive,
HAS ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:
Article 1
Article 2
For the purposes of this Directive:
- (a) ‘conformity-assessment procedures’
- shall mean the procedures set out in Article 10 and Annex B;
- (b) ‘equipment’
- shall mean items listed in Annexes A.1 and A.2 which must be placed on board a ship for use in order to comply with international instruments or are voluntarily placed on board for use, and for which the approval of the flag State administration is required according to international instruments;
- (c) ‘radiocommunications equipment’
- shall mean equipment required by Chapter IV of the 1974 SOLAS Convention, in its up-to-date version, and survival craft two-way VHF radiotelephone apparatus required by Regulation III/6.2.1 of the same Convention;
- (d) ‘international conventions’
-
shall mean:
-
the 1966 International Convention on Load Lines (LL66),
-
the 1972 Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (Colreg),
-
the 1973 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol) and
-
the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (Solas),
together with their Protocols and the amendments thereto in their up-to-date version;
-
- (e) ‘international instruments’
- shall mean the relevant international conventions, the relevant resolutions and circulars of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the relevant international testing standards;
- (f) ‘mark’
- shall mean the symbol referred to in Article 11 and set out in Annex D;
- (g) ‘notified body’
- shall mean an organization designated by the competent national administration of a Member State in accordance with Article 9;
- (h) ‘placed on board’
- shall mean installed or placed on board a ship;
- (i) ‘safety certificates’
- shall mean the certificates issued by or on behalf of Member States in accordance with international conventions;
- (j) ‘ship’
- shall mean a ship falling within the scope of international conventions; warships shall not be covered;
- (k) ‘Community ship’
- shall mean a ship for which safety certificates are issued by or on behalf of Member States under international conventions. This definition shall not include a Member State administration's issuing a certificate for a ship at the request of a third country's administration;
- (l) ‘new ship’
-
shall mean a ship the keel of which is laid or which is at a similar stage of construction on or after the date of the entry into force of this Directive. For the purposes of this definition, ‘a similar stage of construction’ shall mean the stage at which:
-
construction identifiable with a specific ship begins
and
-
assembly of that ship has commenced, comprising at least 50 tonnes or 1 % of the estimated mass of all structural material, whichever is less;
-
- (m) ‘existing ship’
- shall mean a ship which is not a new ship;
- (n) ‘testing standards’
-
shall mean the standards set by
-
the International Maritime Organization (IMO),
-
the International Organization for Standardization (ISO),
-
the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC),
-
the European Committee for Standardization (CEN),
-
the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (Cenelec)
and
-
the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI)
in their up-to-date version, and established in accordance with the relevant international conventions and with the relevant IMO resolutions and circulars to define testing methods and test results, but only in the form referred to in Annex A;
-
- (o) ‘type-approval’
- shall mean the procedures for evaluating equipment produced in accordance with the appropriate testing standards and the issue of the appropriate certificate.
Article 3
1.
This Directive shall apply to equipment for use on board:
-
a new Community ship whether or not the ship is situated within the Community at the time of construction;
-
an existing Community ship
-
where such equipment was not previously carried on board
or
-
where equipment which was previously carried on board the ship is replaced, except where international conventions permit otherwise,
whether or not the ship is situated within the Community when the equipment is placed on board.
-
2.
This Directive shall not apply to equipment which on the date of the entry into force of this Directive has already been placed on board a ship.
3.
Notwithstanding the fact that the equipment referred to in paragraph 1 may fall within the scope of Directives other than this Directive for the purpose of free movement, and in particular Council Directives 89/336/EEC of 3 May 1989 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to electromagnetic compatibility(6) and 89/686/EEC of 21 December 1989 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to personal protective equipment(7), that equipment shall be subject only to this Directive, to the exclusion of all others for those purposes.
Article 4
Each Member State or the organizations acting on its behalf shall ensure, when issuing or renewing the relevant safety certificates, that the equipment on board Community ships for which it issues safety certificates complies with the requirements of this Directive.