by Lloyd's List
5 June 2025 (Lloyd's List) - BRUSSELS is under pressure to scrap the EU ETS and FuelEU Maritime rules as the impending global IMO green framework has shipowners warning of double taxation.
The International Maritime Organization’s net zero framework will come into force in 2028, provided it is formally adopted at the MEPC in October.
International Chamber of Shipping secretary-general Guy Platten said the EU should align its rules with the IMO’s.
“Otherwise it’s going to be double taxation, effectively, and it’s going to make Europe less competitive with the rest of the world,” Platten told a Nor-Shipping panel.
Odfjell chief executive Harald Fotland said European industry was “alone in the world” because of its many regulations.
Fotland said the many complicated regulations favoured bigger companies, who had the people and resources to devote
to compliance. He said smaller companies had been driven out of the market.
“We see that more and more shipowners simply give up,” he said.
Fotini Ioannidou, director of waterborne transport at DG Move, the European Commission’s transport directorate, said it was too early for the EU to make the call on the ETS and FuelEU.
The commission’s rules meant it must assess the ambition and environmental integrity of whatever the IMO came up with, she said.
“We have started this analysis but we are really at the beginning,” Ioannidou said.
She said the IMO had also left “a huge number” of guidelines to be decided in future. In particular, the EU needed to know the IMO’s final lifecycle assessment guidelines and rewards for green fuels before making the call.
“We need to see a little bit more clearly before we decide the way we go,” she said.
Ioannidou said the closer challenge was ensuring the IMO had the majority of countries it needed to pass the net zero framework in October.
“I am not saying I am pessimistic, but we should not take it for granted,” Ioannidou said of the regulation passing. Fotland said companies should ask their home governments how they planned to vote in October. If it was “no” or “abstain”, companies should demand an explanation.
