ABSTRACT
The Athens Declaration of the EU Member States acknowledges that 75% of the EU imports and exports depend on maritime transport. The importance of the EU shipping industry is reflected in economic values published by Oxford Economics (2015), whereby it is estimated that the EU shipping industry has a total impact on the EU GDP of 147 billion Euro, and on the labour market with 2.2 million jobs. The EU-controlled fleet represents 40% of the world tonnage and grew by 70% from 2005 to 2014 (Oxford Economics, 2015).
