German cruise-liner directors resign over Malta reflagging

A decision to reflag the cruise ship Deutschland in Malta by its owners Peter Deilmann cruises provoked the resignation of two of the company's directors, in protest at the move.

The 'Love Boat', as it is nicknamed, is currently berthed in London's Canary Wharf to entertain German guests at the London 2012 Olympics.

The shipping company Deilmann had announced back in May that its 175-metre cruiser which since the 1990s has served as the backdrop to the popular German station ZDF's television series 'Love Boat, would be reflagged under the Maltese registry to reduce costs.

But two of the three joint managing directors at Peter Deilmann - Andreas Demel and Marcus Mayr - have tendered their resignations, after the reflagging issue became the subject of public debate inside the Bundestag, the lower house of the federal German parliament.

"From a business point of view, it is crucial to the success of Peter Deilmann that it keeps operating in a framework of conditions comparable to shipping companies on the German market that operate their ships using flags other than Germany's," Demel and Mayr said.

On his part, the other director, Konstantin Bissias, said the company would retain the German flag pending the resignations.

German ship owners have said that changes in shipping policy due to budget cuts have rendered the German flag uncompetitive. Only 530 of some 3,700 ships in the Germany merchant shipping fleet are actually flying the German flag, allowing ship owners to hire crews under rules of the country they are flagged in, rather than under domestic German laws.

The Deutschland's captain Andreas Jungblut is opposing the reflagging, and is supported by the German services union Verdi is supporting his protest in a bid to safeguard collective bargaining issues with the ship's employees.