Talks are underway with organisations in Germany, Ireland and Spain to establish mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) between the national crane operator licencing authorities and ESTA’s European Crane Operators Licence.
ECOL has so far signed two MRAs – with the Netherlands and British Columbia in Canada. Such agreements involve ensuring that standards of the national licence and ECOL are fully aligned.
Once they are, an ECOL licence and the national licence will be interchangeable and operators holding them will be able to work in all ECOL-recognising territories without the need for additional training or qualifications.
The current round of talks are with SOLAS in Ireland; BG Verkehr in Germany; and the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Spain.