The new official regulation for a European maritime one-stop shop environment, also known as EMSWe (technologically neutral and inoperable and with harmonised interfaces) aims to facilitate the electronic information of ships entering, staying and leaving any of the ports of the European Union. This regulation replaces directive 2010/65/EU.

Currently, more than 1,200 commercial ports are located in the European Union, in fact, the continent is one of the regions with the highest port density in the world. That is why the importance of this regulation is already taken into account by all companies with maritime transport services or with responsibilities at customs level.

The aim of the regulation is to establish harmonised rules for the provision of the information required at port calls, ensuring that the same sets of data can also be communicated at each national maritime single window. It is also intended to facilitate the transmission of information between declarants, competent authorities and port service providers in the port of call and other Member States.

February 2020

As explained by the European Parliament, the deadline for updating data is 15 February 2020. It is up to that deadline that member states must communicate to the EU any obligations arising from national legislation and standards, as well as the information required in the new EMSWe.

Maritime transport boom

Bearing in mind that shipping is the backbone of today’s international trade, some of the advantages of applying the maritime one-stop shop are:

• Facilitating maritime transport and reducing the administrative burden on shipping companies.
• Simplify and harmonise the information procedures necessary to comply with the obligations imposed on companies by legal acts of the Union, international or the national law of the member states.
• Greater interoperability and more comprehensive and user-friendly information flows in order to improve the functioning of the internal market and meet the needs of citizens and businesses.