Directive 2018/131 - Implementation of the Agreement concluded by the EC Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) and the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) to amend Directive 2009/13/EC in accordance with the amendments of 2014 to the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as approved by the International Labour Conference on 11 June 2014 - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 22/28

In accordance with Article 155(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), management and labour (‘the social partners’) are able to jointly request that agreements they conclude at Union level be implemented by a Council decision, on a proposal from the Commission.

Council Directive 2009/13/EC (1) implemented the agreement concluded on 19 May 2008 by the European Community Shipowners' Associations (ECSA) and the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) to incorporate the mandatory provisions of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (‘the MLC’) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) into Union law, in order to update the Union legislation in force with those standards of the MLC which were more favourable for seafarers. It aimed at improving working conditions for seafarers, particularly as regards employment agreements, working hours, repatriation, careers and skill development, accommodation and recreation facilities, food and catering, health and safety protection, medical care and complaint procedures.

Following international expert meetings, the ILO launched a process to amend the MLC in order to address concerns relating, on the one hand, to the abandonment of seafarers and financial security and, on the other, to claims related to death or long-term disability of seafarers. The Special Tripartite Committee established under the MLC adopted two amendments on those issues at its meeting from 7 to 11 April 2014. Parts of the rules subject to the amendments fell within the Union's competence and concerned matters on which the Union had adopted rules, in particular in social policy and transport. On 26 May 2014 the Council therefore adopted Decision 2014/346/EU (2), setting out the position to be adopted on behalf of the Union at the 103rd session of the International Labour Conference (ILC). The position of the Union was to support the approval of the amendments to the MLC Code (‘the 2014 amendments to the MLC’).

The 2014 amendments to the MLC were approved by the ILC at its 103rd session in Geneva on 11 June 2014 and entered into force on 18 January 2017. They relate to providing an effective financial security system to protect seafarers' rights in the event of abandonment and to assure compensation for contractual claims for death or long-term disability of seafarers due to occupational injury, illness or hazard. They improve and optimise the existing system for protecting seafarers, including the obligation for ships to carry documentary evidence on board of the financial security system and to extend the system to cover two new situations of abandonment. Those situations relate to cases in which seafarers have been left without the necessary maintenance and support or to cases in which the shipowner has unilaterally severed its ties with the seafarer, including failure to pay contractual wages for a period of at least 2 months.

On 5 December 2016 the social partners in the maritime transport sector — the ECSA and the ETF — concluded an agreement (‘the social partners'...