Maritime security in the European Union—empirical findings on financial implications for port facilities

To address the maritime security issue, the IMO Diplomatic Conference adopted in December 2002 the International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) Code. The European Union fully agreed with its contents; Regulation (EC) No. 725/2004 transposes in Community Law the associated rules, which came into force on 1 July 2004. Interesting questions from an EU-policy point of view are then: What are the additional costs associated with the implementation of security regulations by port facilities (here in particular terminals) in EU-member states? Moreover, how are these additional costs being recovered by port facilities? Another inter-related question is: are there any subsidies involved in the cost recovery? The present paper addresses these questions with the presentation of the main results of an explorative empirical study on maritime security-related costs and their financing in EU-member states. Furthermore, a number of topics are recommended for further study on maritime security costs and financing and associated (EU) regulations.