Germany launches roundtable on MASS

A press release^[1] issued by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), which is the main government agency for maritime affairs in Germany,  announced the creation of a roundtable on MASS. This is evidence of the government’s involvement in the topic and also is a sign that German authorities are opting for a bottom-up approach that involves stakeholders before adopting hard regulation on the topic. The roundtable is a joint initiative by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) and the German flag state administration, aiming to bring together businesses, research institutes and regulators and provide input to rules at national, European and international level.

As a first concrete step, the roundtable is due to provide input to develop a comprehensive national legal framework on autonomous vessels, which is currently still lacking in Germany. The work of the roundtable builds upon already existing rules and guidance at international and EU-level, including the preparatory work^[2] for an IMO MASS code, the EU Operational Guidelines^[3] on trials of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships as well as the Memorandum of Understanding^[4] on cooperation regarding the international operation of MASS (MASS MoU ) of the North Sea coastal states, which Germany joined as a member last July.

The article also explains that current projects on MASS in Germany mainly focus on the deployment of remotely operated workboats in offshore wind farms, as well as tests on remote control and autonomous navigation. One project example from the past is the Galileo Nautic^[5] project which consisted of upgrading a conventional research vessel in a way that it can autonomously perform berthing operations in real traffic conditions.

[1] https://www.bsh.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/DE/Text_html/html_2025/Pressemitteilung-2025-28-11.html

[2] https://www.imo.org/en/mediacentre/hottopics/pages/autonomous-shipping.aspx

[3] https://transport.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-11/guidelines_for_safe_mass.pdf

[4] https://mobilit.belgium.be/sites/default/files/documents/publications/2024/MoU%20on%20Maritime%20Autonomy_20231128.pdf

[5] https://www.futuremobilitycenter.de/forschung/projekte/kat6/galileo-nautic.html