Negotiations on ships’ sewage and other maritime issues predict a busy HELCOM winter

14 November 2014

The current status of reception facilities for sewage, as well as their use, are among the region’s hot shipping topics considered at HELCOM meetings this fall. Key occasions include the annual HELCOM Maritime Meeting last week and the HELCOM Heads of Delegation meeting, to take place 9-10 December 2014.

The national contacts and industry and civil society observers in the maritime field have commented an update of the HELCOM report on current availability and use of sewage reception facilities in the Baltic Sea area. The revised version of the report is currently developed further based on recent information from the cruise industry, ports and national administrations. The 2014 version of the report will be released during spring 2015.

The last week’s Maritime meeting in Riga, Latvia discussed the current status of the notification submission to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on the sewage port reception facilities. Such a notification is needed in order to enforce the status of the Baltic Sea as a special area in terms of sewage from passenger ships, as agreed at IMO in 2011.

Final agreement is yet to be reached when a submission to the IMO meeting is to take place, as three countries still wish to clarify uncertainties regarding the quality of sewage, implications to small ferries or address the reception capacities in specific ports.

According to the Maritime meeting outcome, discussions on the submission to the IMO will continue during the upcoming months within a dedicated correspondence group led by Sweden. Interim outcome of the correspondence will be considered by the HELCOM Heads of Delegation meeting in December.

Other important shipping issues discussed within HELCOM during the autumn and early winter include the coastal state preparations for implementing the new stricter limits to sulphur in bunker fuel to be applied in the Baltic Sea 1.1.2015, summarized in a recent interim report; revision of the list of HELCOM target species to be used in the agreed risk assessment procedure related to exemptions from ballast water management according to the IMO ballast water management convention; strengthening regional cooperation on alternative fuels; updating HELCOM Recommendations on ship-to-ship and bunkering transfer operations; as well as regional guidance on under keel clearance.

The remaining maritime related HELCOM expert meetings for 2014 include HELCOM-OSPAR TG BALLAST 5-2014 (Ballast Water Management, 1–2 December 2014) and HELCOM SAFE-NAV 5-2014 (Safety of Navigation, 13 December 2014 Copenhagen, Denmark) as well as the HELCOM RESPONSE 19-2014 (Response to spills at sea and on the shore, 25–27 December 2014, Tallinn, Estonia), HELCOM EWG SHORE 9-2014 (sub-group on response to spills on the shore, 24 December 2014, Tallinn, Estonia).