The European Union requires the twelve Classification Societies recognized by the EU (hereafter described as EU ROs*) to mutually recognize the class certificates for materials, equipment and components issued by other EU ROs, in appropriate cases, in Article 10 of REGULATION (EC) No 391/2009**, which entered into force in 17 June 2009 (hereafter described as EU Mutual Recognition).
Under the requirements of EU Mutual Recognition, applicable products approved by the Society (ClassNK) are installed onboard vessels registered with other EU ROs and comparable products approved by the other ROs are to be accepted for installation onboard vessels registered with the Society.
* EU ROs: ABS (USA), BV (France), CCS (China), DNV (Norway), GL (Germany), KR (Korea), LR (UK), ClassNK (Japan), PRS (Poland), RINA (Italy), RINAVE (Portugal) and RS (Russia)
** "REGULATION (EC) No 391/2009 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 23 April 2009 on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organizations", Article 10

In response to this requirement, the EU ROs have agreed to apply EU Mutual Recognition in a phased manner and developed a common procedure for type approval and technical requirements for eleven items as the first phase, which were deemed to have relatively little effect on the safety of ships. Technical requirements were developed to cover all relevant rules of EU ROs and finalized with the result of external review by the relevant industry. Application of EU Mutual Recognition for the eleven items as the first phase in accordance with the agreed procedure and technical requirements commenced from 1 January 2013.

Special attention is to be paid to the application of EU Mutual Recognition to vessels and the applicable products as follows.

(To be continued)