The Political Economy of Maritime Safety

This introductory chapter sets the political, economic and historical scene for the study which is about how and why private and public governance of international maritime safety changed in the period mid-1970s to around 2015. It argues that an historical approach can reveal patterns in international regulatory development otherwise difficult to see. It explains why structuring the analysis around a string of dramatic maritime accidents that took place in this period and juxtapose these to contemporary European integration processes and changes in world economy can bring insight to changes that took place within the international maritime governance structure. It introduces how and why the EU was gradually given regulatory power over shipping matters by its Member States. This in turn introduced new European-wide regulation and control mechanisms, which fundamentally challenged the entire international maritime safety governance structure, which was centred around the International Maritime Organisation, IMO. Particular emphasis is put on why and how—and with what consequences—the EU chose to make regulation of the maritime (ship) classification societies such a prominent part of its approach. The chapter starts with a shipping regulatory retrospect, arguing that a quick glance at the historical origins and key characteristics of the sectors’ governance structures may assist in explaining the more recent developments scrutinised in this book. Finally, some analytical tools such as ‘international regimes’, ‘institutional interaction’ and the ‘The Brussels Effect’ are introduced for use throughout the ensuing chapters.

This chapter focuses on the political drama that unfolded during and after the sinking of Erika off France in late 1999 and the couple of years that followed. It demonstrates how the entire international regulatory regime for maritime safety came under intense scrutiny. It argues that, while many industry insiders—both private and governmental—reacted to the Erika accident by looking for causes confined to the vessel, French authorities and the EU institutions tended to see a failure of the regime itself as the real reason for the Erika incident and the many others that had preceded it.

An important aspect of the chapter is therefore the outlining and discussion of how the questioning of the maritime safety regime’s key components came about—more forcefully and in new forms—in part because of new entrants to the debate. The prominent role played by France will be examined in some detail. Furthermore, emphasis will be put on analysing the post-Erika amendments to EU legislation already adopted on the activity of classification societies. Through these changes, the classification societies—primarily in their capacity as EU recognised organisations (ROs)—were for the first time brought into the regulatory limelight and became subject to direct EU regulation. These developments are explored and analysed with a focus on both the systemic implications this had for classification societies themselves, the roles they perform, and for the international IMO-centred regime they operate within. In parallel, the impact on shipping from the EU’s wider integration and institution-building processes are brought into the frame. In this context the creation of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) will be outlined and analysed as a significant step in EU integration but equally so for the international maritime safety regime.

This chapter looks at the period 2002 to 2005. On the threshold of the twenty-first century, the EU had established itself as a regulatory force in the maritime world. A new layer—with substantial clout—had been added to international policymaking in the sector. It demonstrates how fundamental weaknesses had been identified at the EU level and corrective action had to some extent been taken. By 2002, the European Commission had tabled two post-Erika packages of proposals (‘Erika I’ and ‘Erika II’), and many of the measures had already been converted into legislation by the Council and the Parliament. Despite all this, yet another dramatic shipwreck—the Prestige—took place and was to exert further influence on the course of these EU policy processes. The chapter explores how Prestige reopened the issues which had supposedly been settled in the wake of Erika. It demonstrates how the southern Member States broke ranks with the rest of the EU and thereby also challenged the EU’s adherence to the UNCLOS. It addresses how the EU and the rest of the maritime regulatory world reacted to this challenge. The chapter outlines how the institutional interaction between the EU and the key actor in the international regime, the IMO, took on entirely new meaning and proportions. Furthermore, it will continue exploring the active role of the European Parliament as an agenda setter and significant arena for debate on, and input to, the policy-making processes in international maritime affairs. Finally, this period brings a sharply intensified conflict between the leading classification societies members of IACS to the fore. The reasons behind will be analysed, along with important signals of a further tightening of their working conditions when delivering maritime classification services in the EU market and beyond.

This chapter studies the years 2005 to 2015. In the early days of this period, Prestige challenged the international maritime regulatory regime—including UNCLOS—in even more fundamental ways than Braer and Erika. The fierce reactions propelled the EU onto the international maritime policy scene more forcefully than ever. Then, in November 2005, the Commission tabled its third post-Erika package of legislative proposals. This so-called Erika III package consisted of seven proposals. When these were adopted by EU Member States in 2009, the EU’s ‘maritime safety strategy’ adopted 16 years earlier, in 1993, had largely been executed. The most consequential Erika III proposals are being analysed in detail. These are the ones where both the process and outcome had the most significant impact on the balance between private and public governance in the international regime. The first of these brought yet another major revision of the legislation directed at ROs. The other two addressed EU Member States in their capacity as flag states. The chapter will explore how these developments interact with parallel advances at the international level, leading towards some form of binding IMO instruments on flag-state implementation and minimum standards for the ROs. These processes culminated in the adoption of the IMO’s Triple III and RO codes in 2013. With these codes’ entry into force in 2015, EU maritime safety regulation and the international regime largely converged. Finally, the EU competition case raised against the classification societies’ technical coordination body IACS in 2008 will be briefly outlined and assessed focusing on the impact this ‘dawn raid’ had in terms of the relationship between private and public governance in the international maritime safety regime.

This chapter sums up and draws historical lines from the previous chapters on how and why private and public governance of international maritime safety changed from the 1970s to the end of the 2010s. It summarises how domestic and regional European policy processes were influenced by external events in the form of shipwrecks, and how these regional processes in turn interacted with the economics of the shipping industry and the international maritime safety regime. It substantiates that through history several actors—private and public—have played their part. The chapter draws conclusions on why the maritime (ship) classification societies came to play such an important, while not always equally visible, part in international maritime safety and environmental regulation. From their origins as rating agencies serving the need of underwriters and cargo owners to identify risk, these organisations—together with governments, primarily as flag states—have long been at the core of the regime’s rulemaking and compliance oversight. The chapter also concludes that the relative importance of government flag state statutory regulation versus private classification rules and standards has varied over time, but the two have increasingly come to overlap. It concludes that the steady growth in open registries—or flags of convenience (FOC)—and the parallel increase in delegation of statutory tasks from governments to classification societies acting as recognised organisations (ROs), has accentuated the situation. At the end, and despite the book’s analytical focus ending in 2015, this final chapter also includes some thoughts on the future and potential areas for further study.