DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR MOBILITY AND TRANSPORT
Directorate D - Logistics, maritime & land transport and passenger rights
D.1 - Maritime transport & logistics
Brussels,
MOVE D1/ D (2015)
Draft Report
Directive 2010/65/EU
On reporting formalities for ships arriving in and/or departing from ports
13th eMS expert group meeting
Lisbon, Tuesday, 28th October 2014
Participants: see Annex I
The 13th meeting of the eMS group has been hosted by EMSA. It has been chaired by Sandro Santamato, Head of the "Maritime Transport and logistics" Unit in DG MOVE.
1. Opening of meeting and approval of the agenda
Lazaros Aichmalotidis from EMSA welcomed the eMS group in the EMSA Conference Centre “Loyola de Palacio”.
DG MOVE welcomed the participants. The 13th meeting of the eMS group will serve two purposes, firstly to answer the request of EMSA Administrative Board to share information with national experts on best practices for NSW, secondly to pursue eMS activities with the objective to support the MS for implementing Directive 2010/65/EU in a harmonised manner as from 1st June 2015.
At the 39th meeting of the Administrative Board of the European Maritime Transport Agency (EMSA) in June 2014, the Board decided that in order to further support cooperation between Member States EMSA will organise a workshop for the relevant experts to share best practices, the experience gained by EMSA in developing the NSW prototype in the context of the IMP demonstration project and also enhance coordination with other EU projects, notably the AnNa project.
2. Approval of the 12th meeting report
DE clarified its reservations at page 3. DE disagreed with the Customs business rules and considered that they are not ready to be included.
WSC asked for replacing at page 3 paragraph 7 ”WSC submitted text” by “WSC had submitted the text in writing”.
In relation to the last paragraph in page 3 WSC clarified that they were not questioning FAL Form 2 but would like to propose a pragmatic solution ensuring that FAL Forms are accepted.
BE requested a clarification for action point 2 on the use of FAL Form 2 because it is not clear which solution has been accepted.
DG MOVE reminded the fall back solution provided by the Customs business rules in the case the eManifest would not be ready on time. If MS require FAL Form 2 or an equivalent cargo manifest as provided in the FAL Convention, either FAL Form 2 or the Manifest can be lodged in the NSW in line with the Annex of the RFD. A harmonised solution would not exist as only FAL Form 2 data elements are a priori common elements in cargo manifests.
Action Point 1: The eMS Group approved the 12th meeting report with amendments. DG MOVE to update and publish the meeting report on CIRCA BC.
3. EMSA Administrative Board Request to share best practices and enhance co-operation
National Single Window Projects
EMSA has been tasked to provide technical assistance to support Member States during the preparatory and design phase of implementation of Directive 2010/65/EU, taking into consideration the experience gained by EMSA in developing the NSW prototype in the context of the IMP demonstration project. EMSA approach was to re-use some of the IMP modules.
Advanced AnNa Pilot Projects
DG MOVE had invited, prior the meeting, the AnNa project manager to select a few participating MS for presenting different solutions elaborated in the context of the project.
14 MS are participating to the AnNa project and the total number of partners is 24. Other MS are welcomed to join. Two common pilots have been selected for presentation among the 72 pilot projects developed within AnNa.
SE, leader of activity 2 (pilot projects) made the first presentation. Work began with the development of a conceptual data model supervised by DE and later approved by other MS partners. The WCO data model was used for common naming standard. Then the messages were constructed from XML and EDIFACT using the WCO model. This common message structure was approved by the 14 AnNa MS partners. 12 partners announced they will use the model. This was the foundation for machine-to-machine communication (M2M). This is now being tested. Since AnNa project will end in 2015, a mechanism has to be put in place to take over the work done. It is fully compliant with the data mapping carried out by the eMS group.
IT suggested making verifications between IMP and AnNa to help MS to understand the way forward. DG MOVE reminded the objective which is to work towards an EU harmonised solution.
NO is only an observer to the project but has proposed a pilot project. M2M connections are good for large stakeholders but less for small shipping companies. A web interface is more user-friendly but also need to accommodate the upload of bulky data (e.g. hazmat, cargo) which takes too long to type into a web interface. The pilot aimed at agreeing on format and spreadsheet for MS to upload to web portal. Twelve MS participated to the pilot. Some already use spreadsheets.
Three participating MS are using three different systems (PCS, NSW …). NO presented the workbook and the spreadsheet system. A simple template design has been chosen. NO is working with ports which transfer the information to the port systems. Pre-filled spreadsheets can be downloaded by vessels and reported to the next SW.
Data elements are extracted for data storage and the excel file can be dis-guarded. The legal issue of the duration of storage of the original excel files is in discussion in NO as various administrations have various legal constraints.
When the pilot project will be finished results will be communicated and guidelines will be drafted.
In complement, PT presented a demo where Hazmat information is uploaded in a PCS system.
DK and UK expressed their support to the maritime single spreadsheet, which has to be harmonised with the other solutions. BU declared that they plan to use the IMP web based interface and excel approach. Shipping industry is very supportive. However, for the future M2M is the way forward.
ECSA and WSC would like to have a clear picture from MS what is going on with seven months left until the deadline. Large companies need to be sure that M2M will also be supported by MS.
NL supported ECSA and WSC as 80% of all ships will use M2M and 20% upload version.
IPCSA confirmed that their members make up 60-70% of sea trade volume and most of them use M2M. In terms of ports, hundreds of ports in Europe are using PCS. Shipping lines mostly use EDIFACT and CUSCAR with no human intervention. It is impossible to enter this amount of data manually.
DG MOVE summarised the presentations and asked if there were other solutions that AnNa was exploring. AnNa Project Manager answered that these solutions are complementary. AnNa is only providing assistance but the implementation of NSW is a national issue.
DE reported that the data protection issue is very important in Germany and the information cannot be stored anywhere and conveyed to other authorities.
NSW Prototype (IMP Demonstrator), including technical assistance actions
EMSA presented the web interface of the IMP NSW project. The project is coming to end. The IMP project budget is €600k, of which €450k is dedicated to the demonstration and 150k on the study. Version 2 of prototype has been tested with cargo and data exchange through SSN.
The interface is a straightforward translation of the data mapping report. The structure has been designed to look like the forms e.g. the maritime declaration of health looks like the form so that users can see the form as it would look on paper. There is also an excel upload and the feedback from shipping companies is that they like excel.
EMSA organised three sessions with shipping agents with MS in the project and their feedback has been incorporated.
The final “Version 3” which will be delivered in January 2015 will also include nautical charts, new form structure, additional formalities, use of SSN databases In addition EMSA has provided technical assistance to Malta, Italy and Romania and have received a request from Greece and Finland.
IT has tested the prototype and confirmed that it has been successful. IT would like to upload PDF for items falling under part C. DG MOVE considered that the directive requires that information can be used for processing and thus PDF is not compliant.
EMSA also reported that it is difficult to test M2M with shipping companies. EMSA has managed to carry out testing through collaboration with the eMAR project and this has been tested with an external system. This has been successful but results need to be assessed in detail.
RO confirmed that the technical assistance provided by EMSA was very important and IMP prototype has been tested in a satisfactory way. Tests will continue in 2015.
NL questioned storing information with IMP. Most countries have very strict data protection rules and cannot store information. Information shall be relayed immediately to the authority concerned.
DG MOVE reminded that relevant information shall be made available to other MS. NL answered that the current legal framework does not allow it. DG MOVE reminded that the directive is explicit and includes section on confidentiality. Solutions could be with access rights.
DE considered that EU shall provide common data protection rules. At the moment the situation is not clear and there is a discussion in DE Parliament over this issue. Logistics information is combined with safety and different legal acts from different domains. Legal experts in Germany also think that encryption will not solve the problem.
In answer to WSC, EMSA declared that an objective of the demonstration is to develop a harmonised interface based on the specifications agreed by the eMS group. EDIFACT is not included due to the very limited budget and deadline but it would be interesting for the future.
As it has been requested by a number of delegations, EMSA informed that design documentation of the user interface are available on its website.
DG MOVE summarised the discussion. The excel spreadsheet seems to be an interesting cost effective solution to fulfil the directive. A governance process will in any case be needed to sustain the different systems. DG MOVE will also consider which solutions MS have already put in place. To answer the question from industry as to what are the solutions already envisaged is a pertinent question and it would be useful for all to have a common understanding of the developments. So DG MOVE will prepare a short questionnaire to find out if you have been involved in any of the projects mentioned today or internally.
3.2 How to further support co-operation between Member States
Addressed under Item 5
4. Roadmap and next steps
As agreed at the 11th meeting of the eMS group, an updated version of the RFD Roadmap has been send to the member of the eMS group in October 2014 for information, with updated milestones.
5. National Single Windows Guidelines
DG MOVE summarised past discussions. Version 1.0 of the NSW Guidelines had been issued in view of an adoption at the 11th meeting of the eMS group but the participants still had comments and considered that more detailed Guidelines were necessary to ensure a harmonised implementation of the reporting formalities directive. So a dedicated group of MS had re-examined the Guidelines. A lot of work has been done and new Guidelines have been produced and checked by the sub group on data mapping and functionalities. However in the Commission’s view, this version did not provide sufficient harmonisation. After the 12th eMS group meeting a small working group was set up with AnNa and EC to look at the Guidelines and presented a revised version 1.3. References to AnNa specifications and IMP project have been incorporated. There are remaining questions to address and DG MOVE expressed its reservation as the new Guidelines still do not achieve a sufficient level of harmonisation.
FI considered that the NSW Guidelines document was very good and useful and based on the requirements of the directive. It is good that connection between ENS and NSW are specified. It is also good that the Guidelines recognise EDIFACT and XML because most of the operators use EDIFACT and will continue using it. FI has the intention to proceed with this document. The Finnish NSW is almost ready and complies with the requirements of the RFD. These comments do not come out of the blue. Finnish experts have been working in subgroups on business rules. MS need leeway in their implementation.
UK considered that the document is very good in principle but it seems that each MS will have its own solution. UK agreed with DE on the legal problem for sharing information. A cost benefit analysis should be undertaken on implementing a NSW.
DK questioned what level of harmonisation is aimed in this directive? It would be a big step if the eMS group can agree on data elements and technical specifications. But MS need a certain flexibility to respond to their own national needs.
WSC and ESCA considered that the Guidelines do not go far enough to satisfy the objectives of the legislation. Members will be faced with a mosaic of systems and massive cost and the industry fully share EC view. Thus WSC and ECSA cannot support the diminution of the initial goal. While appreciating the effort of the eMS group the industry urged radical re-think.