The European Commission wants to finalise the legislative proposals emanating from the Blue Belt project, which aims at promoting the intra-European shortsea traffic, by the spring of 2013. It is the intention to have all rules come into force a year later, which would then create within the EU a ‘maritime space without barriers' with simplified customs procedures.
The project itself was launched in the second half of 2010 during the Belgian EU-presidency.
Eventually 250 ships participated in the project. Ideally one wants to create a single e-document, comparable to the CMR used in road transport.