Increasing safety levels to onshore equivalence

Vision

The European Waterborne sector will strengthen Europe’s lead in Waterborne safety and security in two ways. First, by 2030, new technologies and new methodologies will radically improve the management of the safety of ships (both maritime and inland waterway) and of their operations and will contribute to zero fatalities. Then, by 2050, the Waterborne sector will build and operate its fleet with a radically improved safety culture – applied onboard as well as on-shore – and characterized by zero accidents, zero loss-of-life and zero pollution, while ensuring secure data exchange and cybersecurity.

Mission

The European Waterborne sector will preserve safety as a cultural value. It will include all its activities, its products and its infrastructure. It is essential to protect the life and preserve the health of the Waterborne workforce, passengers, and citizens living in coastal areas/near waterways and lakes, because we care about people. Sufficient consideration must therefore be given to social sustainability. The Waterborne sector pursues a zero accident, zero fatalities, zero pollution policy and has an avowed policy to protect ships, vessels and infrastructures from perils, cyber-attacks, piracy and terrorism. Safety shall be ensured in developing new types of ships, vessels and equipment that will become more complex, larger, with more freight and more passengers and increased payload, year after year. The sector shall safely enable new operating conditions and business models by developing new products and supporting the safe introduction of new technologies, materials and fuels.

The position of EU shipyards and technology suppliers shall be strengthened by delivering safe and secure ships and vessels, primarily for complex or critical ships and vessels and for new business models. The European community will represent the forefront of innovation in safety defining standards, enabling the application of new materials and ensuring a safe “marinization” of innovative technologies. On the basis of a solid safety culture and by leveraging European technical excellence, technical contributions shall be provided to the process of regulatory definition at IMO, CESNI, CCNR, UN-ECE and other competent bodies.