Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2023)714 - Delegated acts of the Commission under Directive 2014/90/EU on marine equipment

Please note

This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.

dossier COM(2023)714 - Delegated acts of the Commission under Directive 2014/90/EU on marine equipment.
source COM(2023)714
date 21-11-2023
REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL

on the exercise of the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on the Commission under Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on marine equipment


1. BACKGROUND

Article 37(1) of Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on marine equipment1 confers on the Commission the power to adopt delegated acts subject to the conditions laid down in the article. Under Article 37(2) of the Directive, the power to adopt delegated acts is conferred for a period of five years from 17 September 2014. The first period ended on 17 September 2019. The Commission therefore adopted a report (COM(2019)34 final) as required by Article 37(2) and the delegation of power to adopt delegated acts was tacitly extended by another five years until 17 September 2024.

The Commission is authorised in accordance with Article 37 to adopt delegated acts referred to in Articles 8, 11, 27 and 36 of the Directive.

These delegated acts may concern:

- Article 8: the adoption of harmonised technical specifications and testing standards






- in the absence of an international standard and

- due to a serious weakness or anomaly in an existing standard

for a specific item of marine equipment in exceptional circumstances where duly justified by an appropriate analysis and in order to remove a serious and unacceptable threat to maritime safety, to health or to the environment and taking into account any ongoing work at IMO level.

- Article 11: the identification of specific items of marine equipment which can benefit from an electronic tagging.

- Article 27: interim harmonised requirements and testing standards for specific items of marine equipment subject to an EU safeguard procedure where the non-compliance of the marine equipment is attributed to shortcomings in the testing standards.

- Article 36: updates of the references to standards contained in Annex III dealing with the requirements to be met by conformity assessment bodies in order to become notified bodies (currently EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012 and EN ISO/IEC 17025/2005).


In accordance with Article 37(2) of Directive 2014/90/EU, the Commission must draw up a report on the delegation of power not later than nine months before the end of the five-year period. The delegation of power is to be tacitly extended for periods of an identical duration, unless the European Parliament or the Council opposes such extension not later than three months before the end of each period.

2. COMMISSION EXERCISE OF DELEGATED POWERS UNDER DIRECTIVE 2014/90/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL OF 23 JULY 2014 ON MARINE EQUIPMENT

The Commission has exercised the power to adopt delegated acts conferred on it by Directive 2014/90/EU once during the reporting period.

The adopted act is the Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2021/1206 of 30 April 2021 amending Annex III to Directive 2014/90/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on marine equipment as regards the applicable standard for laboratories used by conformity assessment bodies for marine equipment.

It was adopted in accordance with Article 36 of the Marine Equipment Directive.

In 2017, ISO published a revision to standard EN ISO/IEC 17025 and has withdrawn the previous version of the standard, which could still be used during a three-year long transition period ending in November 2020.

In point 19 of Annex III to Directive 2014/90/EU, the reference to standard ‘EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005’ therefore had to be replaced by a reference to ‘EN ISO/IEC 17025:2017’.

3. CONCLUSIONS

The Commission sees the need to extend the empowerment because of the need to supplement or amend respective provisions of the Directive to a constantly changing list of marine equipment items falling into the scope of the Directive (Article 11), to updated international standards linked to the requirements to be met by conformity assessment bodies (Article 36) and in order to remove serious and unacceptable threats to maritime safety, to health or to the environment within a short time span should this become necessary (Articles 8 and 27).

1 OJ L 257, 28.08.2014, p. 168.

EN EN