European Maritime Safety Agency; Current Activities and Pending Tasks

Abstract

Maritime disasters that happened around the turn of the century led to the adoption of measures by the European Union in order to ensure a high, uniform and effective level of maritime safety and prevention of pollution by ships within the Community. Thus, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) was created, with headquarters in Lisbon (Portugal). It is comprised of members from all 27 states, being responsible for controlling 100,000 km of coastline and 1200 commercial ports. The control and identification work is done with the long tracking system (LRIT) which allows to evaluate and alert each EU Member State to the risk that each of the vessels leads to navigate international waters and jurisdictional European Space. Likewise the Automatic Identification System (AIS) recognizes the real time position of the vessels as they navigate the waters of the European Union. The agency is also responsible for monitoring fuel, for the supervision of ship dismantling (Control from the Cradle to the Grave), for the training of technical personnel, for the development of technical standards, for the advisory to Government Institutions (EU Member States), and Non-Governmental Organizations. This paper shows the main activities of EMSA and tasks for the future.