CESMA ON LINE COUNCIL MEETING, April 28th, 2026
The second on line CESMA Council meeting was done on 28.04.2026 from 15 :00 to 16 :00 CET. The agenda of the meeting was:
1. CESMA News 2026-2;
2. CESMA AGA 2026 at Bilbao;
3. Other
The meeting was moderated by CESMA President capt. Dimitrov. The moderator explained the rules for the meeting. All the member associations were advised beforehand that they may invite as much members of their associations as they want to parrticipate. There were 16 participants. All CESMA board members were present. As we are using free version of Google meet, recording was not posssible.
Capt. Dimitrov announced the agreed agenda. The floor was given to capt. Hubert Ardillon, Secretary General of CESMA, who presented CESMA News March 2026 which is available on CESMA web site and already member associations confirmed the receipt of the paper copy. Again there was no participant from AVCCMM but SG and the President informed the participants about developments of the preparation and organization of next CESMA AGA in Bilbao. The AGA will be at Bilbao Maritime Museum. The agenda was discussed and secretary general will finalize it in the coming days and he’ll send it to the member assocaitions as soon as posssible. There will be three presentations in the assembly about decarbonization, maritime autonomous surface ships and GPS jamming and spoofing. CESMA Board plans information and discussion about the geopolitical situation in the Strait of Hormuz and the problems it created to ship captains.
Capt. Dimitrov presented brief information abouthis participation in EMPA general meeting in Ghent, Belgium. The most important topics were the changes in the EU Port Strategy, deep sea pilotage and the importance of the seafarers as human capital. More information will be published in the next CESMA News.
Capt. Hardillon informed the participants about the situation with subscriptions and he reported the organizations still not transferred their subscriptions for the year 2026.
Capt. Antonio Raggi from USCLAC advised the Council about the intention of USCLAC to make presentation during CESMA AGA about jamming and spoofing. Capt. Dimitrov shared the experience of pilots from Poland to solve the problem. The matter will be discussed duringCESMA AGA in Bilbao.
Capt. Ivailo Paskov from BSMA informed about the coming maritime forum Global Compass in Varna, Bulgaria in 08th – 09th September 2026. There are already confirmations from ICS, Nautical Institute, maritime companies.
Capt. Stig Sundberg spoke about the case with the Finnish chief officer Albukary still in prison in Turkey. The problem of criminalization of seafarers had been discussed. Capt. Lacos from Croatia said that there is no information about capt. Bekavac involved in the same case and said that most probably diplomatic efforts from Croatian government led to his release from prison but he cannot travel abroad as his sentence is still in force. Capt. Aine Hyde from IIMM proposed the case to be raised in the EU Court of Justice. Capt. Dimitrov confirmed the readiness of CESMA to assist the case and to raise the matter in EU Commission and EU Parliament. The criminalization is again an issue to seafarers and it shall be discussed during coming AGA and resolution about that will be amended.
Next CESMA council meeting will be in Bilbao in person 28th – 29th May 2026.
Capt. Dimitar Dimitrov, PHD, FNI, CESMA President