Safety - EMSA - European Maritime Safety Agency

BCSEA II - Safety

BCSEA SAFETY BANNER

Safety is the sine qua non of maritime transport – the primary element on which all other aspects of shipping depend. Overall, maritime safety is primarily regulated by international conventions adopted mainly under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). While shipowners are in charge of keeping ships in compliance with the international maritime standards, Flag States are the first line of defence against substandard shipping.

As a result, safety is a key pillar of the BCSEA II project and is supported through a range of technical assistance mechanisms, access to tools, and training. The project seeks to assist beneficiary countries with key safety-related challenges, thus contributing to a more robust maritime safety culture across the entire Black and Caspian Sea area.

BCSEA II: safety in focus

BCSEA II facilitates the efforts to upgrade all beneficiaries to the Whitelist, tackling the root cause of the problem, which is, in some cases, the absence of national legislation transposing international instruments, as well as the need to enhance national capacity at all levels for the implementation of the international conventions and to ensure the appropriate implementation and enforcement.

Therefore, in the Black Sea region, priority will be given to the TIE(R) action in support of “Ratification, Transposition, Implementation and Enforcement”.

Beneficiaries will continue to be assisted in all phases of the of the IMO Members States’ Audit Scheme (IMSAS). The assistance will include preparatory training sessions aiming at increasing familiarisation with procedures and practices of IMSAS.

In parallel, BCSEA II focuses on building capacity at national level, thus offering beneficiaries access either to tailor made trainings or to common core curricula developed by the EMSA Academy for Flag State Inspectors. Access will also be ensured to the Virtual Reality Environment for Ship Inspection (VRESI), a state-of-the-art simulator which builds realistic, immersive and configurable spaces for trainees to perform ship inspections in a safe and controlled environment and to the Maritime Knowledge Centre (MaKCs 2020), a web-based platform for training.

The Project will support the efforts of the Black Sea Memorandum of Understanding and its members. Efforts will be made to achieve harmonisation between Port State Control (PSC) inspection regimes through exchange of best practices between the regional MoUs. Caspian Sea beneficiaries will be supported to establish the Caspian Sea Memorandum of Understanding on PSC and each beneficiary to implement the adopted procedure and the relevant professional development scheme for Port State Control Officers.