Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-02-Speech-1-122"
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"en.20030602.8.1-122"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we vote on this report this week, we will, I believe, have achieved in record time something that the people of Europe and the public at large have been awaiting with urgency. It is, after all, self-evident that, after the accidents involving the
and the
something had to happen.
When it comes to transporting oil, we are giving old, unsafe, and dangerous ships no more chances. At the same time, Parliament and the Council are directing that bulk shipments may now be transported from and into EU ports only in double hull tankers. By combining these factors, which I see as the most important – heavy oil into and out of European ports from now on only in double hull tankers – and by significantly speeding up the scrapping of the old single hull tankers, we are making the sea and European waters safer to a substantial degree.
Only a few months have elapsed between the Commission’s initiative and the first reading here in Parliament, and this first reading will also be the last, as that is what has been agreed by Parliament, the Council and the Commission, who have, so to speak, taken a united approach. For that reason I would like to extend very warm thanks to the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, for playing their part in this process, as well as to the Greek Presidency, which – as Commissioner De Palacio has already mentioned – has gone to a great deal of trouble, and also to the Commission, for doing such a good job of bringing the Council and Parliament together so promptly to do this.
This fast-track procedure was possible because the political will to find a consensus was there and – for we have to be honest – because the
disaster made the need for action even more pressing.
Let me just make the following points about the preferred timescale for scrapping. Single hull tankers in category 1, that is, ships built before 1982, may not be operated for longer than 23 years and must be taken out of service by 2005 at the latest. Single hull tankers in categories 2 and 3, built between 1982 and 1996, may be operated until 2010 at the latest. In this, the Council and Parliament have gone even further than the Commission, but I think that there is justification for putting categories 2 and 3 together, as there is no difference between them apart from their tonnages. Small tankers between 600 and 5 000 tonnes are rightly included as regards the carrying of heavy oil, and here too we have reached a compromise, as, in view of their small number and in order to maintain supplies, we have agreed on 2008, which means that, from that date onwards, only small double hull tankers will be able to be used to transport heavy oil.
In this connection I would like to emphasise the international dimension. We know, of course, that shipping is international, and that European rules on their own cannot cover everything. Without European rules, though, we would make no real headway through the International Maritime Organisation, which is very heavy going, and so it is a good thing that the IMO is holding a conference on this subject at the end of this year, at which the Commission and the Council will attempt to have European rules made applicable internationally, in doing which they have Parliament’s full support. It is also, of course, the case that double hull tankers on their own are not the safety factor on which everything depends. Other safety factors include port State control, the way in which a ship is maintained, a well-trained crew, and good navigation, often also with the help of pilots in difficult waters. The oil industry’s argument, as set out in the 'Neue Zürcher Zeitung', that a well-maintained old single hull tanker with a good crew could be much safer than a sloppily-maintained double hull tanker with a sub-standard crew, may well have some truth to it, but it is hypocritical and somewhat stupid. Nobody, after all, asserts that a fifty-year old car is worse than a brand-new Rolls-Royce whose brakes work and whose driver doesn’t fall asleep. For the oil industry to adduce such an argument is pretty dubious. We, on the contrary, agree that it is a combination of diverse factors that makes a ship safer.
Let me address a couple more aspects. A Chinese freighter has sunk off the Swedish coast, and oil is leaking from it – 400 tonnes of it so far. That is why we will, in future, also need rules covering how fuel and engine oil are to be made safer even on double hull tankers. Old ships are to be taken out of service, and must be safely disposed of. If that is to be done in an environmentally friendly way, that cannot mean scuppering them somewhere in the South Seas.
My final point is that Europe has a particular need for new and better ships, which – in view of the dumping that demonstrably goes on – must, for God’s sake, not all be built in Korea. Whilst this is not a discussion about subsidies, the Commission and the Council do need to come up with imaginative initiatives on this, for the building of better ships in European shipyards certainly makes more economic sense than what happened on the coast of Galicia."@en1
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