The EU and the IMO are working to harmonise and improve the rules for design and build of merchant ships. The immunity given to warships spares them from the burden of this set of standardising rules and regulations, which do not take into account their technical and operational peculiarities. Given the wealth of feedback from the world’s merchant fleets, some of these technical recommendations could nevertheless prove to be beneficial to warships. As a consequence of the change in status of the DCN, the French Navy is increasingly calling upon civil shipbuilding yards and classification companies, and is looking seriously at closer similarity between warship build standards and those for methodology and design applicable to the merchant navy.
Maritime Safety and Naval Architecture
A European Commission green paper published on 7 June 2006 stated that, ‘There are enough examples of companies and conventions which demonstrate that it is possible to reconcile . . . improved conditions with better operational effectiveness and safety. Europe’s aim should be to own high-quality ships manned by high-quality crews who enjoy the best working conditions.’ Although this was aimed at the merchant fleet, the same concept could probably be extended to warships.
There are already numerous issues coming under the aegis of the EU, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) or the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that could also be of benefit to the French Navy, its fleet and its ships’ companies. But how does this affect the design and build standards of our warships, and how should they be developed?
Regional Initiatives in a Global Context
The 1992 Maastricht Treaty gave the EU jurisdiction over maritime safety. In 2005, Francis Vallat, President of the French Maritime Institute, said in the context of a Union of 25 countries that a wider Europe would be an advantage for maritime safety and environmental protection. This is even more true now that the EU has 27 members. A long road has been travelled over the past 15 years, in which we have seen the advent of a European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and a committee for maritime safety and ship pollution prevention.
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