A Proposed Shipping Policy to Counteract Flagging-Out: The Paradigm of Greece

Abstract

This paper outlines the flagging-in and -out behaviour of Greek shipowners during the past fifty years. It is argued that this behaviour has not been affected by the growth of the relevant fleet. Instead, practices followed by other competing maritime nations, may have affected Greek flagging-out, e.g. the phenomenon of parallel and other registries that emerged in Europe and elsewhere at the end, and as a result, of the 1981–1987 shipping crisis. The concept of ‘efficient flag’ is used in the paper as a working definition. An efficient flag is defined as one that provides an economical, political, legal and general framework in which companies are able to make efficient use of resources (money, people, ships). An attempt has also been made to determine the size of Greek shipping companies that flagged-out between 1979 and 1998. Moreover, two related topics have been analysed: a) the Greek shipping policy in the period 1953–1998 and its effectiveness in preventing and counteracting flagging-out; and b) the important issue of the competitiveness of the Greek flagged vessel. Finally, a new maritime policy is proposed, based on a vessel ‘point system’, that balances the benefits offered to ships with the targets of the Administration so that flagging-in is attained and flagging-out reversed.