The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), the principal global trade association for merchant ship operators, held its Annual General Meeting in Rotterdam last week, at the kind invitation of the Royal Association of Netherlands Shipowners.
The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) has published its latest Annual Review of maritime policy developments in advance of its Annual General Meeting and to coincide with this week’s meeting of the IMO Maritime Safety Committee.
With USD$10,000 of prize money, the competition has been designed to help those working at sea identify hazards and to promote the critical importance of accident prevention.
The merchant shipping industry – which in the past 16 months participated in almost 1,000 migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean – welcomes the decision by EU leaders to triple resources of the Triton operation. The shipping sector similarly supports the commitment of EU Member States to deploy additional operational means, including vessels and planes, to achieve this objective at relatively short notice. But the fact that operation Triton remains within the mandate of FRONTEX, the EU border agency, raises serious questions about the extent to which these efforts will fully ensure the immediate prevention of further loss of life, which should be the absolute priority.
In advance of the emergency EU Council Summit tomorrow (Thursday 23 April) to address the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, the European and global shipping industries insist that the urgent priority is for EU Member States to immediately launch a proper EU Search and Rescue operation with sufficient resources to prevent the further loss of thousands more lives.
PRESS RELEASE ISSUED JOINTLY BY ECSA, ETF, ICS AND ITF
European and global operators of merchant ships have joined forces with seafarers’ unions to urge EU Member States to take immediate collective action to address the growing humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean Sea.
The boards of the International Seafarers Welfare and Assistance Network (ISWAN) and the Maritime Piracy Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) are pleased to announce the moving of the activities of the MPHRP into ISWAN. A transfer agreement was signed by both parties on 3 August 2015. ISWAN will now be responsible for all the activities of the highly respected MPHRP. The move to ISWAN will enable the programme to develop under the auspices of a well-established international seafarers’ welfare organisation that is registered as a charity.
The humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean Sea is spiralling out of control. EU Member States must act urgently to prevent the loss of thousands more lives, as hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees seek to escape to Europe in boats that are unfit for purpose and which are largely operated by people smugglers.