Within the framework of the common transport policy further measures should be taken to improve safety in maritime transport of passengers.

The Community wishes to avoid by all appropriate means shipping accidents involving ro-ro passenger ships and resulting in loss of life.

The survivability of ro-ro passenger ships following collision damage, as determined by their damage stability standard, is an essential factor for the safety of passengers and crew and is particularly relevant for search and rescue operations; the most dangerous problem for the stability of a ro-ro passenger ship with an enclosed ro-ro deck, following collision damage, is the one posed by the effect of a build up of significant amounts of water on that deck.

Persons using ro-ro passenger ships and crew employed on board such vessels throughout the Community should have the right to demand the same high level of safety regardless of the area in which ships operate.

In view of the internal market dimension of maritime transport of passengers, action at Community level is the most effective way of establishing a common minimum level of safety for ships throughout the Community.

Action at Community level is the best way to ensure the harmonised enforcement of principles agreed on within the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), thus avoiding distortions of competition between the operators of ro-ro passenger ships operating in the Community.

General stability requirements for ro-ro passenger ships in damaged condition were established at international level by the 1990 Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS 90) Conference and were included in Regulation II-1/B/8 of the SOLAS Convention (SOLAS 90 standard). These requirements are applicable in the entire Community owing to the direct application to international voyages of the SOLAS Convention and the application to domestic voyages of Council Directive 98/18/EC of 17 March 1998 on safety rules and standards for passenger ships4.

The SOLAS 90 damage stability standard implicitly includes the effect of water entering the ro-ro deck in a sea state of the order of 1,5 m significant wave height.

IMO Resolution 14 of the 1995 SOLAS Conference, allowed IMO members to conclude regional agreements if they consider that prevailing sea conditions and other local conditions require specific stability requirements in a designated area.

Eight northern European countries, including seven Member States, agreed in Stockholm on 28 February 1996 to introduce a higher stability standard for ro-ro passenger ships in damaged condition in order to take into account the effect of water accumulation on the ro-ro deck and to enable the ship to survive in more severe states than the SOLAS 90 standard, up to 4 m significant wave heights.

Under this agreement, known as the Stockholm Agreement, the specific stability standard is directly related to the sea area in which the vessel operates and more particularly to the significant wave height recorded in the area of operation; the significant wave height of the area where the ship operates determines the height of water on the car deck that would arise following the occurrence of accidental damage.

At the conclusion of the Conference at which the Stockholm Agreement was adopted, the Commission noted that the Agreement was not applicable in other parts of the Community and announced its intention to examine the prevailing local conditions under which ro-ro passenger ships sail in all European waters and to take appropriate initiatives.

The Council entered a statement in the minutes of the 2 074th Council meeting of 17 March 1998 stressing the need to ensure the same level of safety for all passenger ferries operating in similar conditions, whether on international or on domestic voyages.

In its Resolution of 5 October 2000 on the sinking of the Greek ferry ‘Samina’5, the European Parliament expressly stated that it awaited the evaluation by the Commission of the effectiveness of the Stockholm Agreement and other measures for improving the stability and safety of passenger ships.

Following an expert study by the Commission, the wave height conditions in south European waters were found to be similar to those in the north. While meteorological conditions may be generally more favourable in the south, the stability standard determined in the context of the Stockholm Agreement is based solely on the significant wave height parameter and the way this influences the accumulation of water on the ro-ro deck.

The application of Community safety standards regarding the stability requirements for ro-ro passenger ships is essential for the safety of these vessels and has to be part of the common maritime safety framework.

In the interests of improving safety and avoiding distortion of competition, the common safety standards regarding stability should apply to all ro-ro passenger ships, regardless of the flag that they fly, providing regular services to or from a port in the Member States on international voyages.

The safety of ships is primarily the responsibility of flag States and therefore each Member State should ensure compliance with the safety requirements applicable to the ro-ro passenger ships flying the flag of that Member State.

Member States should also be addressed in their capacity as host States. The responsibilities exercised in that capacity are based on specific port State responsibilities that are fully in line with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

The specific stability requirements introduced by this Directive should be based on a method, as set out in the Annexes to the Stockholm Agreement, which calculates the height of water on the ro-ro deck following collision damage in relation to two basic parameters: the ship's residual freeboard and the significant wave height in the sea area where the ship operates.

Member States should determine and publicise the significant wave heights in the sea areas crossed by ro-ro passenger ships on regular service to or from their ports. For international routes the significant wave heights should, wherever applicable and possible, be established in agreement between the States at both ends of the route. Significant wave heights for seasonal operation in the same sea areas may also be determined.

Every ro-ro passenger ship engaged in voyages within the scope of this Directive should fulfil the stability requirements in relation to the significant wave heights determined for its area of operation. It should carry a certificate of compliance issued by the Administration of the flag State, which should be accepted by all other Member States.

The SOLAS 90 Standard provides a level of safety equivalent to the specific stability requirements established by this Directive for ships operating in sea areas where the significant wave height is equal to or less than 1,5 m.

In view of the structural modifications that the existing ro-ro passenger ships may need to undergo in order to comply with the specific stability requirements, those requirements should be introduced over a period of years in order to allow to the part of the industry affected sufficient time to comply: to that end, a phasing-in timetable for existing ships should be provided. This phasing-in timetable should not affect the enforcement of the specific stability requirements in the sea areas covered by the Annexes to the Stockholm Agreement.

Article 4(1)(e) of Council Directive 1999/35/EC of 29 April 1999 on a system of mandatory surveys for the safe operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high-speed passenger craft services6 provides that host States are to check that ro-ro passenger ferries and high-speed passenger craft comply with specific stability requirements adopted at regional level and transposed into their national legislation, when these ships operate a service covered by that national legislation in the region concerned.

High-speed passenger craft as defined in Regulation 1 of Chapter X of the SOLAS Convention, as amended, should not be required to comply with the provisions of this Directive, provided that they comply entirely with the provisions of the IMO ‘International code for safety of high-speed craft’, as amended.

The measures necessary for the implementation of this Directive should be adopted in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission7.

Since the objective of the proposed action, namely to safeguard human life at sea by improving the survivability of ro-ro passenger ships in the event of damage, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale and effects of the action, be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve that objective,