Ian Adams, secretary general of the IBIA, said, 'The European Commission has finally come out with a clear strategy on reducing air pollution from ships. That is good, because it allows the industry to plan ahead and it gives us firm proposals to react to. We welcome the fact that the bulk of the strategy coincides with the global regime which Annex VI to Marpol will introduce.

And we welcome the fact that the strategy has specifically included proposals for introducing an emissions trading system, which leaves the door open for commercial incentives and for developing technical abatement solutions to air pollution problems.'

Adams then expressed IBIA reservations as he continued, 'However, we do have some doubts over the unilateral regional proposal to force all ships in EU ports to burn fuel with a maximum sulphur content of 0.2%. This will force uni-fuel ships to carry low sulphur diesel specifically for this purpose, and we also see that existing legislation which is supposed to ensure that low sulphur diesel is burned in EU ports has proven confusing and inconsistently applied.'

The proposed EU strategy has been sent to the European Council and the European Parliament, and the Commission anticipates that it will take about two years of negotiation to finalise the draft directive which will implement a SECA.

MJ Information No: 17732