RECREATIONAL BOAT LICENSING, LACK OF UNIFORMITY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

Many European countries require the skipper of a pleasure craft to be able to provide evidence of his competence. The pleasure craft operator card or boating license permits people operate a pleasure craft. One of the requirements of this license is intended to decrease the number of boat accidents. This paper analysis the regulation of different European Union countries related on recreational boat licensing and states that there is no uniformity at European level in terms of the requirements for sailing in pleasure boats. Thus, licenses that allow navigation in pleasure boats, the theoretical and practical as well as the requirements for obtaining the qualification and training of future skipper, essential for ensuring the safety of these boats are different depending on the member state of the European Union that we are talking about.

The paper is divided into following sections: Section 1 describes a brief introduction; Section 2 provides the state of art and current Spanish regulation; Section 3 analysis different European countries regulation; Section 4 proposes the need of an European certificate and finally, Section 5 remarks some conclusions and further research.