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1. Inspections shall be carried out only by inspectors who fulfil the qualification criteria specified in Annex XI and who are authorised to carry out port State control by the competent authority.

2. When the required professional expertise cannot be provided by the competent authority of the port State, the inspector of that competent authority may be assisted by any person with the required expertise.

3. The competent authority, the inspectors carrying out port State control and the persons assisting them shall have no commercial interest either in the port of inspection or in the ships inspected, nor shall the inspectors be employed by, or undertake work on behalf of, non-governmental organisations which issue statutory and classification certificates or which carry out the surveys necessary for the issue of those certificates to ships.

4. Each inspector shall carry a personal document in the form of an identity card issued by his competent authority in accordance with Commission Directive 96/40/EC of 25 June 1996 establishing a common model for an identity card for inspectors carrying out port State control ().

5. Member States shall ensure that the competence of inspectors and their compliance with the minimum criteria referred to in Annex XI are verified, before authorising them to carry out inspections and periodically thereafter in the light of the training scheme referred to in paragraph 7.

6. Member States shall ensure that inspectors receive appropriate training in relation to changes to the port State control system applied in the Community as laid down in this Directive and amendments to the Conventions.

7. In cooperation with Member States and the State signatories to the Paris MoU, and based on the expertise and experience gained at Member State level in the Union and under the Paris MoU, the Commission shall develop a professional training programme to support the training and the assessment of competences of port State control inspectors by Member States in order to complement the Paris MoU Training policy, with a view to harmonise port State control practices.

In cooperation with the Member States and the State signatories to the Paris MoU, the Commission shall, on a continuous basis, identify and respond to new training needs, providing input to amend the curricula, syllabi and content of the training programme for inspectors, especially as regards new maritime safety challenges related to environmental, social and labour issues and new technologies, as well as providing input in relation to the additional obligations arising from the relevant instruments.