Sulfur Non-Compliance Won't Pay in Denmark

On 1 January 2015, new stricter requirements for ships’ sulfur emissions take effect. Compliance with the regulations is of importance to the environment. But, at the same time it is important to Danish shipping that no shipowners get a competitive advantage by speculating in cheating with the content of the fuel. Therefore, efficient and consistent enforcement of compliance with the regulations is decisive.

This is the reason for presenting an action plan today that contains a number of specific initiatives. The action plan is an extension of the Danish Government’s Plan for Growth in the Blue Denmark, which contains an initiative entitled “Improved enforcement nationally and globally”.

The initiatives have been identified in dialogue with the Danish Environmental Protection Agency and the Danish Shipowners’ Association, and continued cooperation is envisaged.

The action plan is based on four focus areas: International cooperation, the development and use of new technology, improved statistics and documentation on non-compliance as well as sanctions.

“With the action plan, Denmark takes an important step in the struggle to ensure efficient enforcement of the sulfur regulations. It is of decisive importance to quality shipping that our control is sufficiently efficient. Efficient enforcement benefits both the environment and the competitiveness of a responsible shipping industry,” says Director General of the Danish Maritime Authority Andreas Nordseth.

The Danish Maritime Authority has already launched the action plan by inviting a number of Denmark’s “allies” in the struggle for efficient enforcement to Denmark in June this year. The purpose of the meeting is, inter alia, to consider the possibilities of closer, informal cooperation between the countries.

In order to ensure that non-compliance does not pay, another initiative listed in the action plan involves a closer scrutiny of the size of fines as well as legal prosecution of ships not calling at Danish ports.

Read more about the initiatives and the entire action plan here.