ruben.maritime: Salvors push for EU meeting

Salvors push for EU meeting

LONDON 22 January – Salvors are seeking a meeting with EU maritime affairs commissioner Joe Borg to push their case for new maritime emergency response measures. These proposals, as set out by the International Salvage Union, call for commercial arrangements between the European Maritime Safety Agency and salvors to run in parallel with steps already taken by EMSA to reinforce spill clean-up capability; a fund for environmental awards to reward salvors who, as a consequence of rendering salvage assistance to shipping casualties, prevent or minimise pollution in EU coastal zones; the use of this fund to compensate and reward coastal communities providing places of refuge for ship casualties; and the introduction of EU-wide responder immunity for salvors. The IMO’s Bunker Spills Convention excludes responder immunity, despite the fact that salvors have to confront the threat of environmental damage from bunkers in almost every salvage case, the ISU argues. The ISU is drafting guidelines for best practice regarding marine casualty management, which it hopes the EU will adopt, and is calling for salvage tugs to provide a guaranteed level of protection for all the EU coasts rather than relying on chance. Tug availability needs to be monitored, the organisation says, along with an inventory of tug and equipment.

Etiquetas: international maritime affairs, maritime incident