In order to check the overwhelming flagging out of Italian vessels and conversely to attract back to the Italian Registry the consistent tonnage that had slipped away under foreign and particular "Flag of Convenience" registries, Italy has recently enacted a new piece of legislation (by virtue of the statute nฐ 30 dated 27.2.98 becoming effective on 1.3.98) establishing the "International Registry of vessel".
Thanks to this new Open Register the Italian government hopes to recover the national private fleet that has tremendously decreased in the last decade (-40% circa) and was said to be bound for extinction within 2005 if this trend lasted.
Data made available from the Association of Italian Ship owners (Confitarma) say in fact that from 1979 until 1996 271 vessels were flagged out and almost 17.500 Italian seafarers lost their employment.
The reason for this is - no doubt - the excessive costs concerning the fiscal and labour regime of the "First Register", which is now the central aspect considered by the piece of legislation in issue.
Before this, in 1989 in order to recover a situation that even then appeared to be critical, the Italian Parliament enacted the "Bare Boat Charter Registration" Law by virtue of which a vessel may be chartered to a foreign company under a flag of a second State while it remains formally registered in Italy and the Italian flag is temporarily suspended.
Despite the beneficial impact as far as the fiscal aspects are concerned, as a matter of fact the management of such ships took most of the national shipping industry and also seafarer skills and experience outside the Italian borders.
It is worth noticing that in order to curtail the expanding "Flag of convenience" phenomenon even the UE had previously tried to create the so called EUROS (EU- Register of Shipping), but with no result.
While Italy has arrived late to the goal of a second registry, other countries, first of all Norway (NIS), have already taken advantage of this for many years with a dramatic increase of the national tonnage and number of seafarers. It would appear also that the beneficial effect are experienced even by the national administration that, despite the lower taxation, can recover more from the wealthy shipping companies.
The Law Nฐ 30 Of 27.2.98.
The relevant articles of the Law concerning the "International Registry" are only seven but, like any piece of Italian legislation, they are rather complex since they refer to various articles of the Maritime Code and statutes which in their turn often make cross reference to further piece of legislation.