Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-123"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000118.5.2-123"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Parliament for offering me the opportunity to hold a debate on the disaster which has occurred off the French coast, as a result of the sinking of the oil tanker
on 12 December 1999, which resulted in more than 400 kilometres of coastline being contaminated with spilt oil, leading to the death of thousands of birds and other enormously adverse effects from the point of view of the environment and the preservation of our seas and of clean coastlines which meet the minimum requirements of a developed society.
In this respect, I believe that, firstly, it is essential to highlight the fact that the European Union has not been inactive since the notorious sinking of the
in 1978 off the French coast. Nevertheless, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we need to do more.
Over the last six years, some fifteen Community regulations and directives have been adopted. This legislation is still recent. The States have now been provided with a legal framework which allows them to tackle the issue of flags of convenience, as well as all of those parties who fail to fulfil their safety obligations.
It now falls to the Member States to demonstrate that they have the political will to provide their marine authorities with the necessary means to carry out their tasks with regard to control and the application of Community regulations, of applying and adequately demanding compliance with those Community regulations which have already been approved. And, of course, the Commission must be certain to ensure that, in the Member States, these regulations are applied in a consistent manner.
With regard to the sinking of the
the results of the preliminary investigation, carried out by the French authorities on the causes of the accident, have been communicated to the Commission. The report demonstrates the lightweight nature – to use a euphemism – of the controls which have been applied in this case.
I must say that the Commission, for its part, since 21 December 1999, has approached the Italian authorities in charge of port inspections, as well as the classification society RINA, which was responsible for the most recent classifications of the
with a view to receiving explanations regarding the way that the
has been inspected. The Commission must ascertain whether the relevant Community directives were correctly applied in this case, both by the Italian authorities, as the port state, as well as the company RINA, as the classification society. These checks, Mr President, are essential with regard to perfecting the directives in the future and our ability to improve on the action which is being taken.
In any event, I would like to inform Parliament that, on the 28th of next month, a special mission from the Commission will go to inspect the company RINA and, in accordance with the conclusions of this mission, we will take any necessary steps. When I say "we will take the necessary steps ", I include the possibility of removing RINA from the list of companies accredited by the Commission.
The Commission also made a similar request to the maritime authority in Malta – the
was flying the Maltese flag – which, I must point out, has so far offered us its full cooperation.
However, without pre-empting the results of these investigations – how the sinking happened, what the real reasons were, and how the inspections were carried out, both by RINA
and by the Italian port authorities –, all indications suggest that the
accident raises a series of questions which merit close attention and require us, in my opinion, to act with the greatest urgency.
The Commission was already preparing a communication on safety in sea transport and port safety. However, these events clearly oblige us to speed up the presentation of this communication and above all to concentrate on the transport of dangerous goods and pollutants, especially oil, gas and chemical products.
This document will be accompanied by a series of legislative proposals intended to improve maritime safety in Community waters. The Commission intends to adopt them before June of this year, so that the debates on the proposed measures may begin, both in this Parliament and in the Council, as from the second six-month period of 2000, under the French Presidency.
In a way, the sinking of the
is the antithesis of what we have all been fighting for: sustainable development, development which is respectful of the environment. It is a clear violation of that approach to development and progress, a flagrant example of the way things should not be done.
As for the content of this communication, we basically intend to tackle the following issues:
Firstly, the tightening up of controls on ‘high-risk’ ships, whatever flag they may sail under, although the statistics speak for themselves: in port inspections, ships carrying the flags of the fifteen Member States of the European Union show around 5.9 incidences per 100 inspections carried out. The world average is around 15.6 incidences in inspections carried out in European ports. In the case of ships flying the Maltese flag – as is the case with the
the figure is 19.7 and, in the case of other flags, it is much higher still. In order to strengthen controls, we will amend the existing directives on classification companies, the control of ships in ports and the frequency of inspections, relating them to the age and flag of the ship. In the case of cars, we all know that, after four years, they have to undergo a technical inspection every year. However, in the case of ships, this is unfortunately not the case. We wish to promote these activities – which, furthermore, have been incorporated into the latest international agreements made within the IMO (International Maritime Organisation) by means of the SOLAS (International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea) and MARPOL (International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships) agreements – and make them mandatory.
Secondly, in European ports, we should promote the use of oil tankers which respect the environment. That is to say, the oil tankers which come to our ports should become double hull tankers, instead of the single hull ones which present a greater risk of pollution in the event of accidents. The latter should be subject to measures intended to progressively phase them out more quickly, in the way that is happening in the United States, and we will thereby remove the risk which we are facing at the moment: of oil tankers which cannot dock in American ports being diverted to European ports.
Thirdly, the communication will deal with the complex and delicate issue of liability and the payment of compensation in the event of pollution resulting from a disaster. The Commission intends to escape the current legal quagmire and present proposals to raise the maximum limits of liability of the parties involved and, furthermore, to include new parties in the chain of liability, which at present consists almost exclusively of shipowners.
More specifically, we intend to establish a system which will allow us to determine the liability of the owner or forwarder of the cargo and hold them liable – indeed, it is because there are forwarders who show little concern for the quality of the ships they charter that shipowners choose to register their vessels abroad – as well as increasing the insurance premium paid by shipowners in respect of the total sum insured per ship.
Finally, the Commission intends to continue in its efforts to improve transparency with regard to the quality of the ships sailing in European waters. In this regard, the Commission proposes to speed up the implementation of the Equasix system, which must be in place as from May of this year, which is no more and no less than a system for up-to-date information on the situation of the international fleet to which all these ships belong. This programme is being developed in common agreement with the French authorities and will provide up-to-date and comprehensive information about the situation of individual ships, not to mention the composition of the crews, which is also an important factor.
In conclusion, it is not just a matter of the
disaster and what has been done up till now, but rather of reaching conclusions so that we can prevent the recurrence of this type of disaster. We must guarantee the effective application of the regulations on maritime safety. The International Maritime Organisation, as we all know, has the capacity neither for controlling nor for making mandatory the regulations subscribed to by some states who often forget their commitments and close their eyes – to put it mildly – to the obligations they have signed up to in these conventions.
Secondly, we must continue to try to achieve greater competitivity in the European shipping sector, which is a sector capable of very high levels of safety, maintaining a high level of requirement, but we must also be capable, with regard to flags of convenience, of combating the abuses which occur in relation to these flags.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, we must combat the irresponsibility of some shipowners, some forwarders, some states, some companies and some operators in the field of maritime transport who, through their irresponsibility, endanger our natural environment and may create disasters such as the one which has unfortunately happened recently along the French coastline.
I could expand on the specific facts which led to this accident. I will not do so. We all know them, and I simply want to say that the Commission shares the indignation, not only of those who live along the French coastline, who are the first to be affected by this disaster, but also all those Europeans – and non-Europeans – who may face similar disasters.
The Commission immediately expressed its solidarity and has wanted to contribute to combating the tragic consequences of this event with all the means at its disposal. But, in my opinion, it is not sufficient simply to combat these consequences. We should also seek solutions and proposals which will give the best possible assurance that events such as this do not recur.
Thus, from the environmental point of view, I must say that, in collaboration with, and at the request of, the French authorities, immediately after the sinking, Commissioner Wallström, who is in charge of the environment, created an environmental crisis unit. This unit set up the Community “Marine Pollution” Working Group and offered the French authorities the best European experts in the combating of pollution. The Commission also participated in the deployment of tools for combating pollution in the area of the disaster, coordinating the actions of eleven Member States of the Union, who have sent more than 26 kilometres of floating barriers to the area. We believe that this coordination and its results represent a degree of progress and success, demonstrating a genuine sense of European solidarity.
This state of affairs is partly the result of work carried out by the Commission over recent years. This work consisted particularly of the creation of a Community system which gathers all available information relating to the existing Community resources for combating this type of pollution, the establishment of a Community Working Group and the joint financing of the project to develop and improve the techniques for combating pollution within the European Union.
As well as the emergency proposal, it is also necessary, in the long term, to maintain the capacity to confront other similar disasters.
Therefore the Commission is delighted that Parliament has favourably received, at first reading, its draft decision on the establishment of a legal framework which will improve cooperation in combating accidental pollution. The Commission hopes that recent events will speed up the final approval of this text in Parliament and the Council and will therefore allow us to move beyond the current situation.
However, with regard to transport, I would like to say that the sinking of the
once again raises the problem of the prevention of marine accidents and, more specifically, safety in the transport of polluting products. In this case, in the field of sea transport."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples