The idea for this article came from work carried out by an ad-hoc legal committee established within the EU Mutual Recognition working group in 2024.^{(1) The EU RO MR Group is composed of 11 Classification Societies having the status of an EU Recognised Organisation working together to implement Article 10(1) of Regulation (EC) No 391/2009. For further information, https://euromr.org/} The committee led by the author Dag Ove Solsvik was composed of lawyers from DNV, Lloyd’s Register (LR), the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), and Bureau Veritas (BV). Dag Ove Solsvik presented the committee’s analysis at SMM in Hamburg (August 2024).^{(2) EU RO MR Workshop at SMM, Hamburg, 4 September 2024. https://www.euromr.org/article/88} The author, together with co-author Francesca Badocco have since developed the committee’s analysis into this legal article. The employment ties to a classification society at the time of writing are acknowledged and systematic steps have been taken to mitigate bias. The views expressed do not represent the official stance of any individual EU RO.