The Commission shall establish and amend the EMSWe data set pursuant to paragraph 3 of this Article.

By 15 February 2020, the Member States shall notify the Commission of any reporting obligations stemming from national legislation and requirements, as well as of the data elements to be included in the EMSWe data set. They shall precisely identify those data elements.

The Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 23 in order to amend the Annex to this Regulation for the purpose of introducing, deleting or adapting references to national legislation or requirements, Union or international legal acts, and in order to establish and amend the EMSWe data set.

The first such delegated act shall be adopted by 15 August 2021.

As set out in Article 4, a Member State may request the Commission to introduce or amend data elements in the EMSWe data set, in accordance with the reporting obligations contained in the national legislation and requirements. When assessing whether data elements are to be included in the EMSWe data set, the Commission shall take into account safety concerns, as well as the principles of the FAL Convention, namely the principle of only requiring the reporting of essential information and keeping the number of items to a minimum.

The Commission shall decide, within three months after the request, whether to introduce the data elements in the EMSWe data set. The Commission shall justify its decision.

A delegated act which introduces or amends a data element in the EMSWe data set shall include an explicit reference to the national legislation and requirements referred to in the third subparagraph.

In the event that the Commission decides not to introduce the requested data element, the Commission shall give substantiated grounds for its refusal, with reference to the safety of navigation and the principles of the FAL Convention.

Where a Member State intends to amend a reporting obligation under in its national legislation and requirements which would involve the provision of information other than the information that is included in the EMSWe data set, that Member State shall immediately notify the Commission. In that notification, the Member State shall precisely identify the information that is not covered by the EMSWe data set and shall indicate the intended period during which the reporting obligation in question is to apply.

A Member State shall not introduce new reporting obligations unless such introduction has been approved by the Commission through the procedure set out in Article 3 and the corresponding information has been incorporated in the EMSWe data set and applied in the harmonised reporting interfaces.

The Commission shall assess the necessity of amending the EMSWe data set in accordance with Article 3(3). Amendments to the EMSWe data set shall only be introduced once a year, except in duly justified cases.

In exceptional circumstances, a Member State may ask declarants to provide additional data elements without the approval of the Commission during a period of less than three months. The Member State shall notify those data elements to the Commission without delay. The Commission may allow the Member State to continue to request the additional data elements for two further periods of three months if the exceptional circumstances persist.

No later than one month before the end of the last three-month period referred to in the first subparagraph, the Member State may request the Commission that the additional data elements become part of the EMSWe data set, in accordance with Article 3(3). The Member State may continue to ask declarants to provide the additional data elements until a decision by the Commission has been taken, and in the event of a positive decision, until the amended EMSWe data set has been implemented.