Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-30-Speech-4-009"
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"en.20001130.1.4-009"2
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".
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the
accident on 12 December of last year and the
accident more recently clearly revealed the limits of the action of some classification and inspection societies in terms of monitoring the construction and, above all, the seaworthiness of vessels that are under their responsibility by delegation from the flag states.
However, and especially in this field, it is the public institutions who have the essential task of responding to the people’s demands with legislative initiatives that ensure the preservation of the environment and an optimum level of maritime safety, as well as the duty to ensure that the rules established are complied with correctly. With this in mind, and in order to remove the obvious differences that exist on an international level between the various classification societies in terms of the competence of their inspectors, the level of development of their IT resources and the degree of technical requirements in their inspections, the Commission has presented us with a proposal to amend Directive 94/57/EC which will apply to all vessels, including those transporting oil products, and which establishes the rules that the Member States, and the classification societies authorised by them, should comply with.
This proposal has been analysed in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, with opinions from both the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy. There have also been talks with the sectors concerned and a great deal of contact with the French Presidency with the aim of being able to arrive at a text agreed by consensus that can be adopted quickly by the two legislative bodies: the Council and the European Parliament.
As a result of all of this, we have drawn up a parliamentary report amending the directive, which suggests improvements in various aspects aimed at strengthening the classification system, as a means and a valid tool for guaranteeing the safety of maritime traffic. Thus, first of all, it is considered that no element of this directive should be interpreted as an exception to the absolute duty of the shipowner, which cannot be delegated, to maintain and use seaworthy vessels.
Subsequently, the harmonisation of the requirements that classification societies have to fulfil is being considered, with the Commission, assisted by a committee, being responsible both for the granting and, if necessary, the suspension or withdrawal of their European recognition. In order to do this, they will take into account accident rates and the results of recorded incidents and accidents on all the vessels classified by each of the societies.
In this respect, there is a commitment to improving the quality of vessel inspections as a measure to prevent maritime accidents. On the one hand, it is stipulated that the classification societies must have their own system of internal audits in order to measure the quality of their services in all the locations where they work, as well as clear rules for the responsibility and monitoring of all its branches and staff. On the other hand, it requires that inspections only be carried out by specialist, exclusive inspectors, that they may not have a relationship with or be dependent on the shipowner in any way, and that the shipowner may not control the vessel classification society.
Meanwhile, a high degree of transparency is established for information on the results of the inspections carried out on vessels, operating conditions or operating restrictions and changes, suspensions and withdrawals of class. This information must be made available to the European, State and port authorities, and to interested members of the public. Also, the transfer of a vessel from one class to another – change of classification society – is dependent on all overdue recommendations and conditions that may be pending being satisfactorily complied with. Thus, periodical inspections and supervisions are established, to be carried out by the Commission and the Member States in order to check whether this directive is being complied with by organisations that are recognised at European level.
Finally, it is stated that the Commission must lay down strict rules and ship maintenance inspection procedures, with a view to compelling all the participants concerned to assume their responsibilities. In this area, the initial proposals from the Commission and Parliament’s amendments aimed to define the system of financial responsibility for the classification and inspection societies. However, the Commission has already announced a second package on maritime safety, which will propose a system of responsibility for all the parties implicated in accidents: shipowners, the owners of the cargo, classification societies, etc. I therefore consider that the various parliamentary groups should not now get lost in a partial debate that is also futile and will prolong the time it takes before final approval, on what should be the financial responsibility of classification societies. I think it would be better for us to leave this for the second package and move forward immediately in order to reach a consensus at first reading with the French Presidency, so that in the next Council of Ministers on 20 December there will already be an agreement with the European Parliament and the first package can be adopted definitively this year."@en1
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