Association of German Shipowners

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Association of German Shipowners
logo
purpose National umbrella organization for German maritime shipping
Seat Hamburg
founding 1907

president Alfred Hartmann
executive Director Ralf Nagel
Martin Kröger
Members around 200
Website www.reederverband.de

The Association of German Shipowners (VDR) is the top federal association for German shipping . Its seat is in Hamburg .

The VDR represents the inter-company interests of the German shipping companies at federal, state and international level, in particular towards European and international institutions. This happens partly directly, partly through international associations of which the VDR is a member, such as the ECSA and the International Chamber of Shipping .

Alfred Hartmann has been VDR President since January 1, 2015 . Ralf Nagel has been a member of the executive committee of the VDR since February 15, 2010 . Martin Kröger is another managing director.

history

Established as the Central Association of German Shipowners (1907)

the VDR office has been in the Kontorhausviertel (Burchardstraße) since 2013

The Association of German Shipowners (VDR) was founded on February 6, 1907 as the Central Association of German Shipowners eV (ZDR) in Berlin . He merged the regional associations that had existed until then. Up until then, the regional shipowners' associations and clubs had bundled their interests in the coastal locations of Hamburg, Bremen, Rostock, Flensburg and Emden.

In 1909 the VDR was one of the six founding members of the International Shipping Federation (ISF) (the other five were Great Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium). In 1916, the year of the war, the VDR helped found the "War Committee of the German Shipping Companies". In addition to the economic and political representation, the committee dealt primarily with war compensation, in contrast to the socio-political task of the ZDR. In 1921 the war committee became the "economic committee". In 1918 the ZDR and seafarers' associations signed the first collective agreement .

1924 to 1945

In 1924 the association took on the name "Association of German Shipowners" and took over the activities of the "Economic Committee of German Shipping Companies". In 1934 the association was dissolved in the course of the centralization of the economic structures and transferred to the "Specialist Group Shipowners" of the Reichsverkehrsgruppe Seeschiffahrt (RVGS).

1945 to 2000

In 1945 - soon after the Second World War, Hamburg was part of the British occupation zone - the VDR was re-established as a registered association under private law and democratically constituted to represent the economic and socio-political interests of German shipping companies. In 1950 he became a member of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA). In 1951, membership in BIMCO (The Baltic and International Maritime Council) was renewed. 1953 followed the resumption of membership in the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) and the International Shipping Federation (ISF).

When, in the mid-1950s, after a few years of strong economic growth, it became clear that the on-board personnel would be scarce for the rapidly growing German merchant fleet , the 'Association for the Promotion of Young Seafarers' was founded in 1954 at the instigation of the VDR. The association is still active today - as a marine vocational training center (BBS). In 1975, the recruiting was supplemented by the training association of German shipping .

In 1957 the VDR celebrated its 50th anniversary. On this occasion, the magazine "Kehrwieder" appeared for the first time (today it is called "Deutsche Seeschifffahrt"). In 1962, the VDR opened an office in what was then the federal capital of Bonn to strengthen political lobbying . In 2002 he moved to Berlin. The VDR was a founding member of the European Shipowners Association (formerly CAACE - now ECSA ). In 1972 the “collective bargaining association of German shipowners” was formed, which has been negotiating the collective wage agreement ever since .

In 1972 the VDR carried out a widely acclaimed study on the “ Ship of the Future ”, which showed how rapid technical developments will affect life and work on board.

In 1995 the VDR and the Association of German Coastal Ship Owners, which had existed since 1896, merged. Since then, the VDR has been the central federal umbrella organization for the protection of inter-company interests of German shipping.

In 1999, the then federal government , also at the instigation of the VDR, introduced tonnage profit determination .

Since 2000

Since 2000, German shipping policy has been largely shaped by the National Maritime Conferences. These take place regularly. The VDR participates intensively in the discussions that take place before, during and after the meetings between politics, social partners and the maritime industry.

The 1st  National Maritime Conference in Emden marked the start of the new shipping policy. This assumed or assumes that there are cross-party maritime interests. It is organized, hosted and directed by the Maritime Coordinator and deals primarily with topics from the areas of shipping , port management , climate and environmental protection , offshore , shipbuilding and marine technology .

At the 3rd National Maritime Conference (Lübeck) in 2003 the shipowners promised to bring at least 100 ships back under the German flag by the end of 2005 . The shipowners fulfilled this promise prematurely. In 2006, at the 5th National Maritime Conference (Hamburg), the shipowners undertook to bring a further 100 ships under the German flag by the end of 2008 in order to reach the number of 500 ships under the German flag. The German fleet at that time comprised around 3500 ships. This promise was also kept. A protracted shipping crisis began in mid-2008 ; After the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers , financial crises spread to the real economy in many industrialized countries.

After the German government announced at the 7th National Maritime Conference (Wilhelmshaven) in 2011, due to repeated non-fulfillment of the voluntary commitment of the VDR to bring ships flying a foreign flag back under the German flag (600 ships registered in the German international register under the German flag) and for reasons of Budget consolidation to cut financial aid for non-wage labor costs, the VDR unilaterally terminated the Maritime Alliance. The federal government assessed the Maritime Alliance as a successful model and relied on its continuation and regretted the unilateral measure of the VDR. At the 8th National Maritime Conference 2013 in Kiel, the Maritime Alliance was revived and reorganized.

Publications

The VDR publishes its association magazine Deutsche Seeschifffahrt four times a year and publishes annual reports.

Chairperson

literature

  • Hans Maack: Shipowners, ships and an association. From 50 years of work by a German shipping organization 1907-1957 . Schroedter & Hauer, Hamburg 1957.
  • Dirk Max Johns (Ed.): 100 Years of the Association of German Shipowners. Seehafen Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-87743-820-6 .
  • Deutsche Seeschifffahrt - Journal of the Association of German Shipowners, ISSN 0948-9002

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. www.reederverband.de/verband.html
  2. shipowner association: press release of December 30, 2014
  3. Bremen Senator Nagel switches to business , February 11, 2010
  4. ^ International Shipping Federation Archive
  5. Los Angeles Herald, November 26, 1909: INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING FEDERATION IS FORMED
  6. See Hans Wilhelm Hoffmann (2012): The sailor as a training occupation: Volume 1: Sailors in the time of National Socialism and in the Federal Republic of Germany 1938-1986 . ISBN 978-3895748011 , p. 7 ff. ( PDF )
  7. Hans Wilhelm Hoffmann (2012): The sailor as a training occupation: Volume 1: Sailors in the time of National Socialism and in the Federal Republic of Germany 1938-1986 , p. 105
  8. ^ BMWI, Documentation No. 597, Seventh National Maritime Conference May 27 and 28, 2011, Wilhelmshaven. Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, August 2011, accessed on September 21, 2016 .
  9. guidelines-for-lowering-the-ancillary-wage-costs-in-the-german-shipping-from-07-09.11. (No longer available online.) In: Bundesanzeiger No. 144, pp. 3329ff. Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development, September 22, 2011, archived from the original on September 21, 2016 ; accessed on September 21, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deutsche-flagge.de
  10. see also www.bmwi.de ( Memento of the original of March 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Event program ( Memento of the original from April 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmwi.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bmwi.de
  11. the association magazine
  12. Annual report ( memento of the original from January 21, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.reederverband.de