To improve marine safety and prevent marine pollution, United States and European Union agree on mutual recognition of technical conformity for marine equipment
On February 27, 2004, the EU signed the Agreement between the European Community and the United States of America on the mutual recognition of certificates of conformity for marine equipment. The U.S. and the EU have decided that "mutual recognition" procedures will facilitate trade in technical equipment. The way it works is that recognized bodies in the exporting country certify the marine product's compliance with the importing country's regulatory and technical requirements.
The Agreement lays down the conditions under which the importing party's regulatory authority is to accept the certificates of conformity issued by the exporting party's conformity assessment bodies. Essentially, the technical requirements in both the U.S. and EU are presumed to be equivalent. Further, it provides a framework for regulatory cooperation between the U.S. and the EU for marine equipment. See Articles 2 and 4 of the Agreement.
Each party designates the qualified conformity assessment bodies (laboratories) that are qualified to review the technical conformity of the products to be traded (Article 6). To ensure proper functioning of the Agreement, the parties established a Joint Committee which will meet periodically and which may also set up Joint Working Groups (Article 7).
In Annex II, the Agreement lists the covered maritime products and it will be periodically updated. It contains products such as Lifebuoy self-activating smoke signals, line-throwing appliances, liferafts, magnetic compasses, echo-sounding equipment and rate-of-turn indicators.
The EU has designated a regulatory agency in each of the EU Member States. For example, in the United Kingdom it is the Maritime and Coastguard Agency in Southampton. The relevant Commission Directorate is the Directorate General for Energy and Transport, Maritime Safety Unit. In the U.S., it is the U.S. Coast Guard, Office of Design and Engineering Standards (G-MS).
The underlying laws and regulations are Council Directive 96/98/E.C. of 20 December 1996 for the EU, and 46 U.S.C. Section 3306 and 46 C.F.R. Parts 159 to 165 for the U.S. The text of the Agreement is attached to the corrected Council Decision 2004/425/E.C. It entered into force on July 1, 2004.
Citation: Corrigendum to Council Decision 2004/425/E.C. of 21 April 2004 on conclusion of Agreement between European Community and United States of America on mutual recognition of certificates of conformity for marine equipment, 2004 O.J. of European Union (L 185) 18, 24 May 2004 (corrected Council Decision and text of Agreement) & (L 234) 9, 3 July 2004 (notice of entry into force).
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