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International maritime agreements

The Netherlands plays an active role in international maritime organisations. By doing so, it is able to ask for attention to be paid to maritime themes that are important to the Netherlands. Such themes include safety, the environment and working conditions.

A voice in international regulations

Maritime shipping is an important transport mode for the Netherlands. It is therefore important to have a voice in international regulations in order to achieve national goals and maintain a level playing field. For instance, international agreements have been made aimed at reducing sulphur emissions from ships. This is of great importance to localised air quality in the Netherlands.

Having international agreements in place means greater impact. Such agreements also ensure fair competition and, for example, prevent countries from sailing cheap ships that create more pollution. The Netherlands is therefore represented in the following bodies:

Short sea shipping

The Dutch government supports the development of a European maritime space without borders. In this way, the government wants to optimise the opportunities offered by short sea shipping (maritime transport between European countries). Through short sea shipping, the government intends to:

  • reduce the administrative burden regarding maritime transport;
  • make maritime transport environmentally friendly;
  • improve transport links between ships, ports and the hinterland.

Digital maritime portal for shipping notifications in the Netherlands

A seagoing vessel visiting a European port must submit hundreds of information and related data. Currently, this is often done in different ways, for each European member state and each seaport. This is time-consuming and expensive and can lead to delays.

The European Maritime Single Window environment (EMSWe) Regulation is a European regulation that, started August 2025, requires ships to submit their reporting formalities (customs, safety, crew) via a single digital window in every EU port. This will reduce the administrative burden.

In this way, European countries are working towards a single, clear and efficient reporting method. This simplifies the work of captains and shipping agents and makes the port process faster and more secure.

Video: A new reporting window for sea harbour visits

A visit to a harbour is essentially entering...

staying and departing from a harbour.

And for such a visit, an agent or a captain has to provide a lot of data...

in a report.

If he does not submit that report?

Then you are not allowed to enter, because such a report is legally required.

A complete report consists of approximately 500 data elements...

so an incredibly large number, and it involves a lot of administrative work.

In European harbours...

an enormous number of ships arrive every year...

and in Rotterdam alone, that is 30,000 ships per year.

For the Netherlands as a whole, that amounts to about one hundred ships per day.

And to make that possible, approximately 5 million reports are submitted each year.

So behind the scenes, there is truly an enormous flow of data and paperwork.

Legislation differs across Europe, per country and even per harbour.

A great many reports have to be submitted and a great many data have to be provided.

If that data is not provided correctly, it can lead to delays...

higher costs and possibly even unsafe situations.

Submitting a report is time-consuming...

while the captain chose this profession to go to sea.

And you also want a certain speed in this maritime logistics process...

because sometimes you also have perishable goods on board.

A request has come from the market...

following the complexity of these reports across the European Member States.

To create a regulation in which the reports would be harmonised.

This has resulted in the European Maritime Single Window environment regulation...

also known as the EMSWe regulation.

And this will, to a large extent, align reports across all member states.

Part of the EMSWe legislation is that each European member state builds an MNSW.

And an MNSW is a Maritime National Single Window.

And you can see that as a digital post office...

where a captain or a ship agent submits a large envelope of data, of information...

and we at the MNSW then ensure that this data reaches the right parties.

Using the MNSW makes things easy, because the agent or captain...

submits all the data at once, and we take care of the distribution of the data...

to the relevant authorities or nautical service providers.

If the ship continues sailing to another European sea harbour...

then the same data is provided there again.

But you can imagine that in Finland, in the north, you need an icebreaker.

You report that as well.

And in Greece, you would not need that icebreaker so quickly.

In the Netherlands, the submission of reports is already very well organised...

especially compared with the sea harbour in the European member states.

And that is because we have good cooperation between the government...

between authorities such as Customs or the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee...

and market parties such as nautical service providers, service providers in the harbour.

And that cooperation is also essential, because without them we cannot organise this properly.

Ultimately, this resulted in...

having a better and more efficient system for submitting reports.

For the captain and ship agents, it reduces administration and costs.

For the logistics harbour process, it means that we can work more efficiently.

Ultimately, the consumer also benefits...

because they receive all goods at home or in the shop on time.

And in general, we can then talk about an improvement...

of the nautical logistics system in the Netherlands.