Legislation

Vice-President Siim Kallas, European Commissioner for Transport today was briefed by the board of the European Cruise Council about cruise ship safety. Vice President Kallas announced that the Commission strongly supports a passenger ship safety review at IMO (International Maritime Organisation) to ensure that European citizens can expect state of the art safety measures in place - no matter where they board a passenger ship. The EU Transport Commissioner outlined the need for a twin-track approach with the IMO. Following its ongoing passenger ship safety review, the EU will either propose re-enforcing recent IMO standards or propose new EU minimum norms, some of which could form the basis for new IMO standards. The following steps are planned next: The Commission services will launch a public consultation process on the passenger ship safety, legislative review, during spring 2012 (April 2012). The Vice President will host, in spring 2012 a conference with stakeholders on the Safety of Passenger Ships. Following the Costa Concordia accident, the IMO has announced that it will consider issues relating to the safety of passenger ships, at the IMO Maritime Safety Committee meeting from 16-25 May 2012. The Commission will bring forwards, if necessary, proposals to adapt existing rules on the safety of passenger ship safety to new developments in the sector before the end of the year. The Vice President will provide more detail about the possible content and timing of his proposals before Summer 2012. Source: EUC press release RAPID IP/12/97 of 03/02/2012

Vice-President Siim Kallas, European Commissioner for Transport has asked that the currently ongoing review of EU passenger ship safety legislation take fully into account any lessons to be learnt from the Costa Concordia tragedy. The review will prioritise, in particular, the issues of: design and stability of passenger ships, technological developments in the sector, crew training and safe operation, including emergency evacuation procedures. Vice-President Kallas will outline the Commission's position to the European Parliament's Transport Committee on Tuesday 24 January 2012. Source: EU press releases RAPID MEMO/12/25 of 20/01/2012; find full text here>>.

The consultation on the possible revision of Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 aims to gather stakeholders' views on the identification of possible shortcomings of the Regulation and their extent, and on the options to improve its application, either via non-legislative measures or via a revision of the Regulation. The consultation period is 19/12/2011 to 11/03/2012. An online questionaire is available here>>. Simultaneously to the launch of the present public consultation, the Commission issued a Communication on passenger rights in all modes of transport All available translations.. It summarises in a simple manner the rights and principles which apply to all modes. Furthermore, the Communication announces that the Commission's main objective now is to make these rules easily understandable and to consolidate their implementation and enforcement in all modes of transport. For further information look here>>.

The airline industry is again asking the U.S. Transportation Department (DOT) or more time — now a full year — to comply with portions of the DOT’s new rules on the disclosure and implementation of baggage fees on multi-carrier routings. When the DOT adopted the rules in April, it set an August effective date, then changed that to January when carriers claimed they needed more time to reprogram their systems. Now the airlines are saying the five-month delay was not nearly enough. Source: Travel Weekly; find article here>>.