Stop Press Advice 1B / 2014 – February
THE CREATION OF A FUND FOR SASEMAR WILL INCREASE THE FEES FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL VESSELS AND YACHTS ENTERING SPANISH PORTS
All national and international commercial vessels pay a fee when entering a Spanish Port (GTx0.035x0.29), in order to use the maritime signposting system (buoys, lights, etc, GROUP A). However, as the Royal Law-Decree 1/2014 came into force on January 24th (which modified the Spanish Port Law), this fee rate will rise, because a new fee concept has been created.
This new fee concept is named Group C and has been created in order to create a fund for SASEMAR, the Spanish Maritime Rescue Public Company, in charge of the maritime safety in Spain. Usually this service is covered by the Spanish Government (95%), but now it will be paid by the users of this service (previously only 5% was covered by users).
The Spanish Government has established that an additional 0.28 fee will now be charged and will go to SASEMAR. This means that the fee rate is now the double than before (0.28 – GTx0.035x0,57).
The Spanish Government has justified this fee rise by the fact that SASEMAR carries out a very important mission in Spain, which is to protect navigation in Spanish waters from any kind of risks and accidents, including environmental disasters, and this requires high level technology and machinery (helicopters, etc) and other resources in order to work out properly.
This fee will be paid by all national and international vessels that enter Spanish waters and Ports, as well as yachts. There is a polemic, according to some sectors, about the fact that yachts are obliged to pay this fee, as it is less expensive and difficult to rescue a yacht than a commercial vessel, carrying fuel for example. However, the fee will be mandatory for all in any case.
The fee will be directly collected by each Spanish Port Authority as it was before and will be paid in full during the first three calls of the vessels in the Port. The Port Authorities will then transfer the funds to SASEMAR every three months.
