The European Community Shipowners’ Association (ECSA) has acquired its 20th member as an increasingly complex maritime rulebook encouraged Croatian owners to rejoin.
The Croatian Shipowners’ Association Mare Nostrum has become a full number of Europe’s shipowner lobby, according to a joint press release by the two organisations this week.
This is not the first time Mare Nostrum has been an ECSA member.
The Zagreb-based outfit first joined in October 2014. Membership, however, was left to lapse.
It was revived after Igor Budisavljevic took over as Mare Nostrum president in 2021.
Efforts to rejoin gathered pace after rapid developments on the regulatory front concentrated minds in the industry.
“ECSA does very good work providing timely and reliable information — it’s much better to be part of it,” Budisavljevic told TradeWinds when asked about the reasons for rejoining.
“We are very pleased to be joining … to work on issues of common interest and ensure our voice is heard in the EU debate,” he said in the joint announcement.
Asked by TradeWinds to single out one regulatory development his members are most concerned about, Budisavljevic named the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), which will include shipping from next year.
ECSA, led by president Philippos Philis, has been active in helping to shape shipping’s inclusion in the ETS.
“Having the Croatian shipowners on board expands our expertise and further strengthens ECSA’s role as the voice of European shipping in Brussels, at a crucial time when shipping regulation at EU level is advancing rapidly,” Philis said.
Mare Nostrum is not the biggest ECSA member.
The 10 companies it represents, however, cover a wide gamut of ship types — from tanker owner Tankerska Plovidba to bulker company Altantska Plovidba and Jadrolinija, which manages ropaxes and ferries.
On top of that, Mare Nostrum has plenty of institutional policymaking experience as a social partner in national wage-setting agreements for seafarers.
Croatia has a long and rich maritime history. Mare Nostrum was founded by 14 shipping companies in February 1991, months before the former Yugoslavian republic declared its independence.
Mare Nostrum became ECSA’s 20th member on 1 January, the same day on which it also became the 20th member of Europe’s single currency, the euro.
