Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-22-Speech-1-045"
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"en.20030922.5.1-045"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Sterckx for the magnificent report he has drawn up as well as all of Parliament’s committees that participated in this work over many months.
Therefore, it is absolutely vital that we establish safe havens and establish emergency plans to shelter vessels in difficulties.
The EU Member States made the political commitment to send those plans to us by 1 July of this year, although legally they have until February of next year. They have all responded, although inconsistently. They refer to different interpretations of the Community regulations. What was said here, what was discussed and what was decided upon within the Council of Ministers and this Parliament was extremely clear: they must, at a given time, provide a safe haven, a place of refuge for a vessel experiencing difficulties.
We are currently assessing the plans drawn up in accordance with the requirements of the International Maritime Organisation and at the next Council I intend to raise this point with the transport ministers and tell them that if they have not fulfilled what the Commission considers to be the requirements in the approved text by 5 February 2004, we will certainly initiate infringement proceedings against those states that do not demonstrate full compliance.
Therefore, we are going to require in all cases, as we are doing now, full compliance with the regulations currently in force and transposition of the regulations into the various national legislations.
On several occasions we have talked about the need to improve maritime safety and the European Union’s capacity to intervene in cases of serious accidents or pollution. To this end, there are the proposals to make changes to the Agency in order to broaden its remit; there is the proposal, and I want to thank Parliament for the support it is going to give us in principle, for the Agency to have resources available, specifically anti-pollution vessels that can operate in rough seas and that are not obliged, as in the case of the
to stay moored due to the size of the waves but can operate in waves of over four metres.
The question of the EU’s presence within the IMO is absolutely vital, as pointed out by the good Member. We are calling for a negotiating mandate for the full incorporation of the European Union in the International Maritime Organisation. On that basis, we want to work, together with the Member States, to promote safety standards, to see to it that flag states take greater responsibility and to ensure better protection of coastal states.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Parliament on the support it has lent us and continues to lend us over the years with regard to this matter. I feel that the outcome is important. Once and for all, the European Union has decided to face these problems rather than just waiting for the next disaster along our coast. We are working in the post
period, as I have said, but even next year we will put forward new proposals to improve port controls and to strengthen the Directive on the monitoring of maritime traffic, with a view to introducing a harmonised European traffic information and management system. We are also already in talks with our neighbours, for example the Russians, on issues such as this, the establishment of a legal framework for investigations following accidents and the application in the European Union of minimum criteria for flag states.
I thank you for the work you have done and would like to point out that as regards the issue of crew, there is the aspect of safety where a crew does not speak the same language: safety in an extreme situation is seriously compromised when orders cannot be given or received adequately. This is something we are looking at and we have proposed some measures to this end. Once more, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I can count on your support to help us to continue to make progress in this area.
I would like to remind you of the current situation as regards the fight against marine pollution. It is important to note, Mr Sterckx, that before the
there was the
and in the same way there was no safe haven then to provide shelter for a vessel in difficulty. Unfortunately, too, before the
and the
there were many other cases where not only was there no safe haven, there was no political will, either on the part of this Parliament or the Council, or on the part of anyone, to adopt measures that would prevent what happened with the
or the
. That is the first thing that must be said.
As you know, the measures we proposed known as the ‘Erika I and Erika II packages’ have been approved, with the exception of the European Compensation Fund for Tanker Pollution. Nonetheless, progress has been made on this last point over the last months and years, thanks to the impetus provided by the Commission – with the support, it must be said, of the EU members of the International Maritime Organisation – to ensure that the maximum ceiling of the IOPC Fund is increased to EUR 920 million, which more than triples the current fund.
In addition to the Erika I and II packages, other proposals were put forward by the Commission just after the
disaster and they are at present being examined by the Council and Parliament. I must point out, however, that one of these has already been adopted and will enter into force 20 days after its publication, which should be at the end of this month or the beginning of next month. This proposal requires the use of double-hull oil tankers for the transport of heavy fuel oil and calls for an acceleration of the timetable for the phasing-out of single-hull tankers. In my view, if this had been proposed and implemented after the
disaster, we could have prevented the
accident.
The result, ladies and gentlemen, is that we cannot rest on our laurels because, regrettably, the
accident was not prevented after what happened with the
. However, we can say something very important and that is that this time we have taken decisions, this time we have acted. That is the major difference between what has happened on other occasions and what is happening now.
The Commission is indeed watching and monitoring the implementation of the measures we have adopted, in other words it is following the actions of the governments of the Member States and adapting them to what has been adopted. In that respect, I must tell you that we have had to initiate 10 infringement proceedings against 10 Member States that have not sufficiently incorporated the new provisions on monitoring by port state control and by classification societies. This in fact relates to two of the key elements in resolving this issue: port control, which thus enables prevention.
As regards the situation on the ground, the Member mentioned that various methods of recovering the oil still inside the wreck are being considered and that, according to the two formulas that exist, the competent authorities will adopt measures in the near future.
I would also like to point out that the beaches affected have been cleaned. This does not mean, however, that there are no longer spillages from the
floating in the sea, in particular around Vizcaya, along the Atlantic coastline, which move with the currents and the winds and can result in pollution along any European coast at any given time.
I would like to refer briefly to some of the points raised by the honourable Member. He asks what went wrong, and he replies that there was no safe haven. I think that before the lack of safe haven something else went wrong: a vessel in a poor state of repair was sailing through dangerous seas. Then, after that mistake, we found ourselves without a safe haven, just as there was no safe haven in the case of the
accident but, much more seriously, just as there was no safe haven a month and a half later in the case of the
accident, when we faced another dangerous situation. Thank God it was not a major disaster, but this was purely because the sea was calm and there was the possibility of decanting the cargo on the open sea, not because we had a safe haven available to shelter a fuel-laden vessel in difficulties, a little more than a month and a half after what we had experienced with the
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