Maritime governance and policy-making failure in the European Union

Many public policy initiatives in the maritime sector have failed significantly in the past 25 years, with notable examples from the EU and its relationship with other jurisdictions. These include the inconsistencies of liner shipping regulation, disasters in bulk and ferry shipping, problematic relations between the EU, IMO, OECD and maritime nation states and the recent EU ports policy. This paper focuses on maritime policy-making failure in the EU. Failure to develop effective maritime policies could be put down to an understandable level of complexity in relations between jurisdictions, administrators, politicians and the industry. Once the degree of the problem has been established, suggestions for improvement can be proposed. It concludes with discussion of how governance in the maritime sector may hold the key to the failures that have been identified and how it may need to adapt to meet to the demands of a new postmodernist environment.