The EU has decided to impose a 0.1% sulphur limit on marine fuels for the English Channel, North Sea and Baltic Sea from 2015 compared with 3.5% in other areas.

CLECAT (the European association for forwarding, transport, logistics and customs services), says it regrets that the EU has not taken the views of the European business and industry into account in a time of economic difficulty and has not responded to the joint industry call to postpone the strict sulphur limits to allow investment in the mass production of low sulphur fuel and development of cost-efficient abatement technologies.

Nicolette van der Jagt, Director General of CLECAT said: “This agreement will increase costs for industry, therefore impacting on citizens’ wealth, without necessarily delivering sustainable results. Sulphur emissions have to be reduced but in a cost-efficient and fair way.” 

Accompanying measures at EU and national levels through existing or new financial support schemes will be required, if the impact of the Sulphur Directive on companies is to be mitigated. Whereas there is clearly a need for accompanying measures, this is an area where CLECAT also foresees potential for further distortion of the internal market.  It is therefore calling on Member States to go back to IMO to ensure a better level playing field at global level.

For more information visit www.clecat.org.