Executive Summary Sheet

Impact assessment on a Proposal for a European Maritime Single Window Environment

A. Need for action

Why? What is the problem being addressed?

The reporting environment for ships is highly inefficient today, due to non-harmonisation, reporting requested via several entry points and low levels of sharing of submitted data (shipping operators being frequently requested to submit the same data to several authorities). Taken together, reporting has therefore become a burdensome task for shipping operators. Around 4.6 million staff hours are spent on reporting every year in the EU with high potential for administrative burden reduction.

What is this initiative expected to achieve?

The proposal aims to establish a truly harmonised, simplified and comprehensive reporting environment. This should strengthen the single market, improve competitiveness of maritime transport, and contribute to the digital multimodal transport chain.

What is the value added of action at the EU level? 

To succeed in creating a harmonised reporting environment, legal action at EU-level is necessary. Policies developed and implemented on international or national level are unlikely to produce harmonisation in this field.

B. Solutions

What legislative and non-legislative policy options have been considered? Is there a preferred choice or not? Why?

The options considered are:

A) Binding technical specifications for achieving harmonised reporting gateways (front-ends) to the National Single Windows (NSWs) either with comprehensive information scope (option A1) or limited information scope (option A2);

B) Common IT solution for a reporting gateway front-end component in all NSWs with comprehensive (option B1) or limited (option B2) information scope;

C) A central Maritime Single Window reporting gateway established at EU-level, with comprehensive (option C1) or limited (option C2) information scope.

Based on stakeholder acceptance, effectiveness, cost-efficiency, risks and coherence, the proposed preferred option is B1.

Who supports which option?

The initiative has strong support from the main stakeholder groups. Shipping companies and ship agents generally prefer a comprehensive scope and centralised solution as guarantee for harmonisation. Member States mostly favour the comprehensive scope and a decentralised solution (harmonising front-end of NSWs).

C. Impacts of the preferred option

What are the benefits of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?

The main benefit is the significant reduction in administrative burden for shipping operators: saving 22-25 million staff hours in 2020-2030 to a value of EUR 625-720 million. The reduced burden and improved efficiency will increase competitiveness of maritime transport, with positive impact on jobs, growth and reduced CO2 emissions. Other benefits expected are efficiency gains (multimodal) from better use of data in ports; increased job satisfaction and higher attractiveness of the profession; safety and security gains.

What are the costs of the preferred option (if any, otherwise main ones)?

The main costs are for development and adaptation of software; and annual operational costs including regular updates of the software. The total estimated costs for 2020-2030 are EUR 29.4 million (MS + COM).

How will businesses, SMEs and micro-enterprises be affected?

The reduced administrative burden and simplified reporting will release staff resources, bringing added value especially to SMEs.

Will there be significant impacts on national budgets and administrations?

The estimated average cost per Member State is EUR 1.15 million for 2020-2030. This includes one-off investments and annual costs.

Will there be other significant impacts?

No

D. Follow up

When will the policy be reviewed?

An evaluation of impacts should be initiated 5 years after implementation. Regular updates will take place in line with legal and technical developments.