Safe seas: ro-ro passenger ships, specific stability requirements

All the amendments proposed by the Parliament have been incorporated in the present amended proposal. They mainly concern the following areas: - the explicit reference in the recitals that the deadline for compliance of existing ro-ro ships, provided in article 7.2 should not affect the present enforcement of the specific stability requirements by the Member States parties to the Stockholm Agreement; - a clarification that High-Speed passenger crafts should not be required to comply with the requirements of this Directive, provided that they comply with the specific international rules established for these type of crafts; - modifications in the definitions of "ro-ro passenger ship" and "a passenger" in order to align then completely with the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention; - a modification on the deadline for compliance with ro-ro ships which on the date of the adoption of this Directive will already comply with the stability requirements subscribed by the SOLAS Convention (SOLAS 90 standard). This provision, which introduces a more flexible deadline, will concern only ships which already have a high quality stability standard much earlier than the 1 October 2010 (compliance deadline with SOLAS 90 standard); - an improvement in the provisions relating to specific authorisations for seasonal and short time operations by ro-ro ships; - a modification in the implementation date which shall be 18 months from the entry into force of the Directive. No modifications have been introduced in the technical Annexes to the proposal (Annexes I and II) which are not reproduced in the present amended proposal.�