The European Commission's science service has quietly halved its estimate of how much coastal shipping the EU's emissions monitoring actually sees. Ships large enough to report, those of 5,000 GT and up, are now assumed to account for just under a third of domestic coastal emissions, down from two-thirds in the previous edition of the Joint Research Centre's energy database. The revision followed the first real measurement of the exempt fleet, carried out to prepare the extension of the reporting rules to smaller vessels from 2029. In other words: the blind spot was only quantified once Brussels decided to close it.
The common thread. The last week has been a study in the gaps of EU carbon regulation at every scale. At the global level, the IMO's Net-Zero Framework slid toward a December crunch: the September working group closed without touching the draft text, member states gave themselves two weeks from 23 November to settle both content and entry-into-force machinery, and the drafting has moved off-stage into informal consultations. At the regional level, Arctic box services have found a UK-shaped hole in EU carbon rules, with Felixstowe calls taking the Arctic ocean leg almost entirely out of the scope of both the ETS and FuelEU. And at home, the JRC's number is a reminder that even inside the system's perimeter, most coastal tonnage has never filed a report. The ETS revision now is before the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
The pressure spreads. Protests against Turkey's two marine parks are spreading among Greek MEPs, with four Socialists now pressing the European Commission to say what practical support it will give Athens, the third such demand to land in Brussels since the decrees were signed. The latest intervention adds a detail absent from the earlier exchanges: Turkey submitted the park maps to UNESCO's oceanographic commission around a year before issuing the decrees. Opposition to the parks, drawn beyond Turkish territorial waters onto what Greece says is its continental shelf, now spans the Greek political spectrum from the Socialists to the Communist-aligned left, plus a Cypriot voice from the right. The EC has yet to take a position.
Ship recycling, briefly. Six shipowner associations, now including BIMCO, ICS, INTERCARGO and INTERTANKO, have urged the EU to approve more South Asian beaching yards beyond the two Alang facilities the Commission has proposed for the European List. The register shows 35 Indian yards waiting; the decision is now before Member States.
There is much more in this week's coverage, including whether the EU has joined America's economic war on Iran and the Arctic box services routing around EU carbon rules, at maritimewatch.eu, alongside an archive of more than five thousand articles. Free trials on request to editor@maritimewatch.eu.