(1)

The International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention, hereinafter referred to as ‘the ISM Code’, was adopted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in 1993. This Code gradually became mandatory for most ships sailing on international voyages with the adoption in May 1994 of Chapter IX ‘Management for the Safe Operation of Ships’ of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974.

(2)

The ISM Code was amended by the IMO by Resolution MSC.104(73), adopted on 5 December 2000.

(3)

Guidelines on Implementation of the ISM Code by Administrations were adopted by IMO Resolution A.788(19) on 23 November 1995. These Guidelines were amended by Resolution A.913(22), adopted on 29 November 2001.

(4)

Council Regulation (EC) No 3051/95 of 8 December 1995 on the safety management of roll-on/roll-off passenger ferries (ro-ro ferries) (3) made the ISM Code mandatory at Community level with effect from 1 July 1996 for all ro-ro passenger ferries operating on a regular service to and from ports of the Member States, on both domestic and international voyages and regardless of their flag. This was a first step towards ensuring uniform and coherent implementation of the ISM Code in all Member States.

(5)

On 1 July 1998 the ISM Code became mandatory under the provisions of Chapter IX of SOLAS for companies operating passenger ships, including high-speed passenger craft, oil tankers, chemical tankers, gas carriers, bulk carriers and cargo high-speed craft of 500 gross tonnage and upwards, on international voyages.

(6)

On 1 July 2002 the ISM Code became mandatory for companies operating other cargo ships and mobile offshore drilling units of 500 gross tonnage and upwards, on international voyages.

(7)

The safety of human life at sea and the protection of the environment may be effectively enhanced by applying the ISM Code strictly and on a mandatory basis.

(8)

It is desirable to apply directly the ISM Code to ships flying the flag of a Member State as well as to ships, regardless of their flag, engaged exclusively on domestic voyages or on a regular shipping service operating to or from ports of the Member States.

(9)

The adoption of a new Regulation with direct applicability should ensure the enforcement of the ISM Code on the understanding that it is left to the Member States to decide whether to implement the Code for ships, regardless of their flag, operating exclusively in port areas.

(10)

Consequently, Regulation (EC) No 3051/95 should be repealed.

(11)

If a Member State considers it difficult in practice for companies to comply with specific provisions of Part A of the ISM Code for certain ships or categories of ships exclusively engaged on domestic voyages in that Member State, it may derogate wholly or partly from those provisions by imposing measures ensuring equivalent achievement of the objectives of the Code. It may, for such ships and companies, establish alternative certification and verification procedures.

(12)

It is necessary to take into account Council Directive 95/21/EC of 19 June 1995 on port State control of shipping (4).

(13)

It is also necessary to take into account Council Directive 94/57/EC of 22 November 1994 on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations and for the relevant activities of maritime administrations (5), in order to define the recognised organisations for the purpose of this Regulation, and Council Directive 98/18/EC of 17 March 1998 on safety rules and standards for passenger ships (6), for the purpose of establishing the scope of application of this Regulation as regards passenger ships engaged on domestic voyages.

(14)

The measures necessary for amending Annex II 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 Commission (7).

(15)

Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to enhance the safety management and safe operation of ships as well as the prevention of pollution from ships, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore 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 Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives,

(a)

the establishment, implementation and proper maintenance by companies of the shipboard and shore-based safety management systems; and

(b)

the control thereof by flag and port State administrations.

(1)

‘the ISM Code’ means the International Management Code for the Safe Operation of Ships and for Pollution Prevention adopted by the International Maritime Organisation by Assembly Resolution A.741(18) of 4 November 1993, as amended by Maritime Safety Committee Resolution MSC.104(73) of 5 December 2000 and set out in Annex I to this Regulation, in its up-to-date version;

(2)

‘recognised organisation’ means a body recognised in accordance with Directive 94/57/EC;

(3)

‘company’ means the owner of the ship or any other organisation or person, such as the manager or the bareboat charterer, who has assumed responsibility for the operation of the ship from the shipowner and who, on assuming such responsibility, has agreed to take over all the duties and responsibilities imposed by the ISM Code;

(4)

‘passenger ship’ means a ship, including a high-speed craft, carrying more than 12 passengers, or a passenger submersible craft;

(5)

‘passenger’ means every person other than:

(6)

‘high-speed craft’ means a high-speed craft as defined in Regulation X-1/2 of SOLAS, in its up-to-date version. For high-speed passenger craft, the limitations indicated in Article 2(f) of Directive 98/18/EC shall apply;

(7)

‘cargo ship’ means a ship, including a high-speed craft, which is not a passenger ship;

(8)

‘international voyage’ means a voyage by sea from a port of a Member State or any other State to a port outside that State, or vice versa;

(9)

‘domestic voyage’ means a voyage in sea areas from a port of a Member State to the same or another port within that Member State;

(10)

‘regular shipping service’ means a series of ship crossings operated so as to serve traffic between the same two or more points, either:

(11)

‘ro-ro passenger ferry’ means a seagoing passenger vessel as defined in Chapter II-1 of SOLAS, in its up-to-date version;

(12)

‘passenger submersible craft’ means a passenger-carrying mobile vessel which primarily operates under water and relies on surface support, such as a surface ship or shore-based facilities, for monitoring and for one or more of the following:

(13)

‘mobile offshore drilling unit’ means a vessel capable of engaging in drilling operations for the exploration for or exploitation of resources beneath the seabed such as liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons, sulphur or salt;

(14)

‘gross tonnage’ means the gross tonnage of a ship determined in accordance with the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships, 1969 or, in the case of ships engaged exclusively on domestic voyages and not measured in accordance with the said Convention, the gross tonnage of the ship determined in accordance with national tonnage measurement regulations.

(1)

Building on the Commission's Communication on sustainable development, the European Council has singled out objectives as general guidance for future development in priority areas such as natural resources and public health.

(2)

Water is a scarce natural resource, the quality of which should be protected, defended, managed and treated as such. Surface waters in particular are renewable resources with a limited capacity to recover from adverse impacts from human activities.

(3)

Community policy on the environment should aim at a high level of protection, and contribute to pursuing the objectives of preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment and of protecting human health.

(4)

In December 2000, the Commission adopted a Communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the development of a new bathing water policy and initiated a large‐scale consultation of all interested and involved parties. The main outcome of this consultation was general support for the development of a new Directive based on the latest scientific evidence and paying particular attention to wider public participation.

(5)

Decision No 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2002 laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme (5) contains a commitment to ensuring a high level of protection of bathing water, including by revising Council Directive 76/160/EEC of 8 December 1975 concerning the quality of bathing water (6).

(6)

Pursuant to the Treaty, in preparing policy on the environment the Community is, inter alia, to take account of available scientific and technical data. This Directive should use scientific evidence in implementing the most reliable indicator parameters for predicting microbiological health risk and to achieve a high level of protection. Further epidemiological studies should be undertaken urgently concerning the health risks associated with bathing, particularly in fresh water.

(7)

In order to increase efficiency and wise use of resources, this Directive needs to be closely coordinated with other Community legislation on water, such as Council Directives 91/271/EEC of 21 May 1991 concerning urban waste-water treatment (7), 91/676/EEC of 12 December 1991 concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (8) and Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (9).

(8)

Appropriate information on planned measures and progress on implementation should be disseminated to stakeholders. The public should receive appropriate and timely information on the results of the monitoring of bathing water quality and risk management measures in order to prevent health hazards, especially in the context of predictable short-term pollution or abnormal situations. New technology that allows the public to be informed in an efficient and comparable way on bathing waters across the Community should be applied.

(9)

For the purpose of monitoring, harmonised methods and practices of analysis need to be applied. Observation and quality assessment over an extended period are necessary in order to achieve a realistic bathing water classification.

(10)

Compliance should be a matter of appropriate management measures and quality assurance, not merely of measuring and calculation. A system of bathing water profiles is therefore appropriate to provide a better understanding of risks as a basis for management measures. In parallel, particular attention should be attached to adherence to quality standards and coherent transition from Directive 76/160/EEC.

(11)

On 17 February 2005 the Community ratified the UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Århus Convention). It is therefore appropriate for this Directive to include provisions on public access to information and to provide for public participation in its implementation to supplement Directive 2003/4/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 January 2003 on public access to environmental information (10) and Directive 2003/35/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 May 2003 providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment (11).

(12)

Since the objectives of this Directive, namely the attainment by the Member States, on the basis of common standards, of a good bathing water quality and a high level of protection throughout the Community, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can 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 those objectives.

(13)

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 Commission (12).

(14)

The continued importance of a Community bathing water policy is evident each bathing season as it protects the public from accidental and chronic pollution discharged in or near Community bathing areas. The overall quality of bathing waters has improved considerably since Directive 76/160/EEC came into force. However, that Directive reflects the state of knowledge and experience of the early 1970. Patterns of bathing water use have since changed, as has the state of scientific and technical knowledge. Therefore, that Directive should be repealed,

(1)

Council Directive 76/464/EEC of 4 May 1976 on pollution caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment of the Community (3) has been significantly amended on several occasions (4). In order to clarify matters, a codification of the provisions in question should be drawn up.

(2)

There is a need for general and simultaneous action by the Member States to protect the aquatic environment of the Community from pollution, particularly that caused by certain persistent, toxic and bioaccumulable substances.

(3)

Several conventions are designed to protect international watercourses and the marine environment from pollution. It is important to ensure the coordinated implementation of these conventions.

(4)

Discrepancies between the provisions applicable in the various Member States with regard to the discharge of certain dangerous substances into the aquatic environment may give rise to unequal conditions of competition and thus have a direct influence on the functioning of the internal market.

(5)

Decision No 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 July 2002 laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme (5), provides for a number of measures to protect fresh water and sea water from certain pollutants.

(6)

In order to ensure effective protection of the aquatic environment of the Community, it is necessary to establish a first list, called List I, of certain individual substances selected mainly on the basis of their toxicity, persistence and bioaccumulation, with the exception of those which are biologically harmless or which are rapidly converted into substances which are biologically harmless, and a second list, called List II, containing substances which have a deleterious effect on the aquatic environment, which can, however, be confined to a given area and which depends on the characteristics and location of the water into which such substances are discharged. Any discharge of these substances should be subject to prior authorisation which specifies emission standards.

(7)

Pollution through the discharge of the various dangerous substances within List I must be eliminated. Limit values were fixed by the Directives referred to in Annex IX to Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (6). Article 16 of Directive 2000/60/EC provides for the procedures for developing the control measures and environmental quality standards applicable to priority substances.

(8)

It is necessary to reduce water pollution caused by the substances within List II. To this end Member States should establish programmes which incorporate environmental quality standards for water, drawn up in compliance with Council Directives, where they exist. The emission standards applicable to such substances should be calculated in terms of these environmental quality standards.

(9)

It is appropriate for one or more Member States to be able, individually or jointly, to take measures more stringent than those provided for under this Directive.

(10)

An inventory of discharges of certain particularly dangerous substances into the aquatic environment of the Community should be drawn up in order to know where they originated.

(11)

It may be necessary to revise and, where required, supplement Lists I and II of Annex I on the basis of experience, if appropriate by transferring certain substances from List II to List I.

(12)

This Directive should be without prejudice to the obligations of the Member States relating to the time limits for transposition into national law of the Directives set out in Part B of Annex II,

(a)

inland surface water;

(b)

territorial waters;

(c)

internal coastal waters.

(a)

‘inland surface water’ means all static or flowing fresh surface water situated in the territory of one or more Member States;

(b)

‘internal coastal waters’ means waters on the landward side of the base line from which the breadth of territorial waters is measured, extending, in the case of watercourses, up to the fresh water limit;

(c)

‘fresh water limit’ means the place in the watercourse where, at low tide and in a period of low fresh water flow, there is an appreciable increase in salinity due to the presence of sea water;

(d)

‘discharge’ means the introduction into the waters referred to in Article 1 of any substances in List I or List II of Annex I, with the exception of:

(e)

‘pollution’ means the discharge by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the aquatic environment, the results of which are such as to cause hazards to human health, harm to living resources and to aquatic ecosystems, damage to amenities or interference with other legitimate uses of water.

(a)

all discharges into the waters referred to in Article 1 which are liable to contain any such substance, shall require prior authorisation by the competent authority of the Member State concerned;

(b)

the authorisation shall lay down emission standards with regard to discharges of any such substance into the waters referred to in Article 1 and, where this is necessary for the implementation of this Directive, to discharges of any such substance into sewers;

(c)

authorisations may be granted for a limited period only. They may be renewed, taking into account any changes in the emission limit values laid down by the Directives referred to in Annex IX to Directive 2000/60/EC.

(1)

Although the implementation of Council Recommendation 98/561/ΕC of 24 September 1998 on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education (3) has been a marked success as demonstrated in the report of the Commission of 30 September 2004, there is still a need to improve the performance of European higher education, particularly as regards quality, in order for it to become more transparent and trustworthy for European citizens and for students and scholars from other continents.

(2)

Recommendation 98/561/EC called for support to and, where necessary, the establishment of transparent quality assurance systems. Almost all Member States have set up national assurance systems and have initiated or enabled the establishment of one or more quality assurance or accreditation agencies.

(3)

Recommendation 98/561/EC called for quality assurance systems to be based on a series of essential features, including evaluation of programmes or institutions through internal assessment, external review, and involving the participation of students, publication of results and international participation. The results of quality assurance assessments play a significant role in helping higher education institutions to improve performance.

(4)

The essential features referred to in recital 3 have generally been implemented in all quality assurance systems and they have been affirmed by the European Ministers of Education, in Berlin, in September 2003, in the context of the Bologna Process, working towards the realisation of a European Higher Education Area.

(5)

The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) was established in 2000 and has a growing membership of quality assurance or accreditation agencies in all Member States.

(6)

In the context of the Bologna Process, Ministers of Education from 45 countries adopted the standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area, as proposed by ENQA, during their meeting in Bergen on 19 and 20 May 2005 and as a follow-up to the meeting in Berlin in September 2003. They also welcomed the principle of a European register of quality assurance agencies based on national review and asked that the practicalities of implementation be further developed by ENQA, in cooperation with the European University Association (EUA), the European Association for Institutions of Higher Education (EURASHE) and the National Unions of Students in Europe (ESIB), with a report back to Ministers through the Bologna Follow-up Group. They furthermore underlined the importance of cooperation between nationally recognised agencies with a view to enhancing the mutual recognition of accreditation or quality assurance decisions.

(7)

EU action supporting quality assurance should be developed in coherence with activities carried out in the context of the Bologna Process.

(8)

It is desirable to draw up a register of independent and trustworthy quality assurance agencies operating in Europe, be they regional or national, general or specialised, public or private, to support transparency in higher education and help the recognition of qualifications and periods of study abroad.

(9)

In the context of the Lisbon Strategy, the European Council in Barcelona, in March 2002, expressed their conclusion that European education and training systems should become a ‘world quality reference’,