ICOMIA Update January 2021

The ICOMIA Update is a member bulletin, please share with your colleagues and members.

From the desk of ICOMIA President

Dear members,

It was great connecting with some of you at the Special General Meeting earlier this month. Apart from confirming important matters such as ICOMIA Finances, it also provided a great opportunity to have an open discussion about the challenges the marine industry associations are facing and how ICOMIA can help in 2022.

It is evident that the industry is still constrained by supply chain issues, increased inflation and the lack of qualified personnel. These are all areas we can collaborate on, share best practices, training materials for employees and ways to support the local manufacturing while keeping sustainability and innovation in mind.

While there has not been a shortage of work for your current Executive Committee, it has been suggested to extend the term of all Executive Committee members by one year. This will be voted on at the Annual General Meeting in June. We probably met more often the last two years than we would have had we had in-person meetings, but the limited ability for our governing board to publicly represent ICOMIA due to Covid posed some challenges. At our Special General Meeting, it was received favourably. Having said that if anyone wishes to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact Udo or myself.  I know I can speak on behalf of the entire Executive Committee and we are all excited and honoured to represent ICOMIA for another year.

While 2022 hasn’t started in the way we all had hoped, I think we should be optimistic there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

Sara Anghel

The 2nd Edition of the RCD Application Guide has recently been published by the EU Commission. ICOMIA is very involved with stakeholder input into the RCD Expert Group who has approved the following changes: modifications of guidance on hydrofoils, model year, durability criteria (relating to OB CI marine engines), maximum recommended load, canoes and kayaks, provisions of Art. 38.4 of the RCD, provisions of the non-road mobile machinery legislation applicable to the RCD and an update of relevant harmonised standards.

The latest version (2022) of the RSG (group of Notified Bodies for the RCD) Guidelines has also been published. The main new features of the Guidelines are as follows:

• A system that has the ability to link the RCD Articles and Essential Requirements directly to the ERFUs (Endorsed Recommendations For Use) and applicable standards
• A new section (Part 5.) - "Harmonised Standards under RCD 2013/53/EU" that includes all the harmonised standards and the relative Annex ZAs
• A full text search extended to the content of ERFUs and RFUs

Both guidance documents provide a very informative means to clarify the essential requirements needing to be fulfilled and ICOMIA welcomes any comments or suggestions for items that may need to be revised or addressed in the next editions.

Last week the EU Commission published a formal report regarding the application of the RCD by the EU and the EEA Member States. The second paragraph in Article 51 of the Directive requires the Commission to submit to the European Parliament and the Council, by 18 January 2022 and every 5 years thereafter, a report on how the Directive has been applied. It's important to note that this provision is separate from that of Article 52 which deals with the Review process and we expect this report to be published later in the 1st quarter of 2022.