Annual General Assembly 2005 - Malmö

Section 2

EU Phare Twinning project "Strengthening Enforcement of Maritime Safety"

Dan HEERING - Estonian Maritime Academy, Estonia

ABSTRACT

In year 2000, about 6 million passengers and around 35 million tons of cargo was handled by Estonian ports. Twenty million tons of it was oil products, which can be defined as a dangerous cargo. It has been estimated that the maritime traffic will increase two -fold in 2010-2015. In addition to vessels visiting Estonian ports, a large number of tankers visiting new Russian ports sail along the Estonian coastline. The risk of accidents is high due to the high concentration of traffic, the number of substandard vessels and the difficult navigational conditions, especially in winter. Twenty-seven casualties or incidents occurred in Estonian waters or involved vessels under the Estonian flag in 2000. These indicate importance of having Flag State Control (FSC) and Port State Control (PSC) more efficient.

Estonian Maritime Administration (MA) and Estonian Maritime Academy (EMA) prepared and carried out the EU Phare Twinning project "Strengthening Enforcement of Maritime Safety". The duration of the project was 24 months and it included 9 sub-projects and an investment component, which included the procurement of a VTS simulator. The objective of the project was to improve the skills of the personnel of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Estonian Maritime Administration and the Estonia Maritime Academy. Main partners in the project were Finnish Maritime Administration (FMA) and Centre for Maritime Studies (CMS) at the University of Turku. The junior partner of the project was the Maritime and Coastguard Agency of the United Kingdom (MCA). In addition to experts from FMA, CMS and MCA, experts from the Denmark, Germany and Sweden took part in the project. The budget of the project amounted to € 1,7 million.

Keywords: Phare Twinning, maritime safety, VTS, GOFREP, flag state control, port state control, ism, winter navigation, continual training, simulator.

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