EU Outermost Regions in Shipping Regulation
How EU maritime law treats the outermost regions such as the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores and Reunion, including EU ETS and FuelEU carve-outs.
The EU outermost regions are territories of Member States that lie far from the European mainland, among them the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores and Réunion. EU shipping law gives them specific treatment. Under Article 12(3-b) of Directive 2003/87/EC, voyages between a port in an outermost region and a port of the same Member State, and voyages within and between that Member State’s outermost regions, carry no EU ETS surrender obligation until 31 December 2030. FuelEU Maritime, Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 Article 2(1)(c), counts one half of the energy used on voyages to or from an outermost-region port.
The full article will cover the regions concerned, the ETS and FuelEU treatment of their voyages, and proposal COM(2026) 616, which would extend the ETS derogation to 31 December 2035. See EU ETS maritime scope and phase-in .