Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-13-Speech-1-065"
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"en.20040913.6.1-065"2
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".
Mr President, according to the information currently available to us, the ship that sank recently in Turkey had originally sailed from Spain in the year 2000 with a cargo of ash from a coal power plant in Spain. In May 2000 the Turkish authorities informed the Spanish Ministry of the Environment that they had received 2 200 tonnes of ash that had been exported without authorisation. The Turkish authorities classified the waste as hazardous due to its chromium content. The Secretariat of the Basel Convention was also informed.
According to the Spanish authorities, they immediately began to investigate the case. The information from the port of Avilés showed that the documents that the ship was carrying were forged, hiding the fact that the waste was originally destined for Algeria but had been rejected there because it was wet and therefore unusable. The company exporting the cargo stated that it had not intended to send the waste to Turkey, but to Algeria, and that the captain of the ship had acted without its consent.
The Spanish authorities took action against the company and required it to take the waste back to Spain for treatment. The company appealed against the decision and administrative proceedings went on until the end of 2002. In 2003 and 2004 discussions continued as to how to return the ash to Spain. In July 2004 the Turkish authorities informed the Spanish authorities that they could proceed with a plan drawn up by the company to transfer the ash to another vessel and return it to Spain. However, before this could be done, the vessel sank on 6 September.
We have strict rules in place that regulate the movement of waste within and outside the European Union. Exports of waste for disposal are prohibited. Exports of hazardous waste for recovery to OECD countries, including Turkey, have to be notified to the competent authority in the country of export and need the consent of the authorities concerned.
If an EU Member State discovers that a shipment has taken place without notification, it has to ensure either that the waste is taken back within 30 days or that it is taken care of in an environmentally sound manner. According to the information available, Spain was willing to take back the waste and fulfil its legal obligations. Unfortunately, legal and administrative problems delayed a solution until it was too late. This problem should have been prevented at source. Therefore it is one of our priorities to work further towards improving implementation of Community legislation.
We are holding regular meetings with national authorities to discuss problems of implementation and possible solutions. A key issue in this respect is increased cooperation between port authorities in order to tackle, among other things, the problem of port hopping.
Furthermore, may I remind you that the role of non-EU countries in cases such as this is defined in the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal."@en1
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