COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION

Updating the Annex to Commission Communication C(2004) 43 — Community guidelines on State aid to maritime transport

(2017/C 120/03)

INTRODUCTION

The Maritime Transport Guidelines (1) (the ‘Guidelines’) provide criteria for the compatibility of State aid to maritime transport with the internal market, under Article 107(3)(c) and Article 106(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

In particular, the Guidelines list a number of specific objectives in the Union maritime interest, including ‘the flagging or re-flagging to Member States’ registers’.

The flagging or re-flagging of eligible ships is thus connected with registration in Member States’ ship registers.

The Guidelines make a distinction, for the purposes of Union State aid law, between different categories of ship registers created by Member States, namely ‘first registers’ and ‘second registers’. For the purposes of the Guidelines, second registers comprise, firstly, ‘offshore registers’ belonging to territories which have a greater or lesser autonomy in relation to the Member State, and secondly, ‘international registers’, attached directly to the State which created them (sixth paragraph of point 1 of the Guidelines).

The Annex to the Guidelines defines the term ‘Member States’ registers’. According to that definition, in order to qualify as Member States’ registers, ship registers must be ‘governed by the law of a Member State applying to their territories forming part of the European Community [Union]’ (first sentence of the Annex to the Guidelines).

On the basis of that definition, points 1 to 4 of the Annex spell out which registers are considered to be Member States’ registers, and which are not.

Point 2 of the Annex provides an exhaustive list of second registers, located in Member States and subject to their laws, which are considered to be Member States’ registers.

The current version of the Annex, and thus the exhaustive list in point 2 thereof, was adopted at the same time as the Guidelines, which have been applied since 17 January 2004. Since then, it has not been updated.

The Commission is aware that Member States may create new ship registers or alter or abolish existing ones. For instance, France created its ‘Registre International Français’ in 2005. Therefore, the exhaustive list of second registers that qualify as Member States’ registers in point 2 of the Annex to the Guidelines is liable to change over time. In order to keep pace with the situation in all register-keeping Member States, the list would have to be regularly updated.

For those reasons, the character of the list in point 2 of the Annex should be changed from exhaustive to non-exhaustive, while maintaining the definition in the first sentence of the Annex, on the basis of which second registers can qualify as Member States’ registers.

The change will ensure both the necessary flexibility in the implementation of the Guidelines with respect to second registers of Member States and legal certainty regarding the treatment of second registers of Member States that were created after the adoption of the Guidelines and thus would otherwise not fall under any of the points of the Annex. Overall, the change will achieve the State aid control objectives of the Guidelines with a minimum of administrative burden, in full respect of the Treaties.

In the light of the foregoing, point 2 of the Annex to the Guidelines should be updated and is to be read as follows:

This update will apply from the date of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

(1)  Commission Communication ‘Community guidelines on State aid to maritime transport’ (OJ C 13, 17.1.2004, p. 3).