European Community Shipowners' Associations


The 'European Community Shipowners' Associations, were formed in 1965. In 1990, the ECSA has taken its present name. It comprises the national shipowner associations of the EU and Norway.
The ECSA is an inter-trade organisation. It represents interests of its members towards EU institutions and towards international institutions.
ECSA works through a permanent secretariat in Brussels, a Board of Directors and a number of specialised committees.
The ECSA is recognized by the European Institutions as the representative body of the European shipping sector. ECSA is registered in the Commission’s Register for Interest Representatives since 23. June 2008.
Main political areas are:
The ECSA describes its aim as follows:
Its aim is to promote the interests of European shipping so that the industry can best serve European and international trade and commerce in a competitive free enterprise environment to the benefit of shippers and consumers.

Member Associations

Many of the ECSA members are as well members of the ICS.

Other

The European shipping industry is controlling 40% of the global merchant fleet and is active in all kinds of maritime services within Europe, between Europe and third countries and in so called 'cross trades' between non EU continents. About half the EU shipping activity took place outside the EU in cross trades.
According to the 2005 CIA World Factbook, the world total number of merchant ships of 1,000 Gross Register Tons or over was 30,936. In 2010, it was 38,988.
Statistics for individual countries are available at the List of merchant marine capacity by country.
Until December 2013,Juan Riva was President of the ECSA. Then, Thomas Rehder was chosen to be President of the ECSA.