Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-12-Speech-3-340"
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"en.20071212.31.3-340"2
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".
(PL) Mr President, today’s opportunity to discuss last month’s Black Sea disaster is very welcome, for at least two reasons.
The first is that, with respect to many countries, including Russia, the European Parliament has a role to play as a substitute for public opinion. Imagine what would happen in the European mass media if a similar disaster occurred, let us say, in the Baltic. The television would regale us with pictures of damaged flora and fauna for days on end. We would be subject to an onslaught of experts explaining the ominous effects of the disaster. In Russia, however, the media are silent. Only with great difficulty was I able to gather a few scraps of information, mainly from Ukrainian sources. Our voice, therefore, is exceptionally important in this matter.
The second reason is what I would call broadening our European awareness: the awareness that regions to which we have hitherto paid little or no attention, like the Black Sea, are an integral part of our continent, not only in the geographical sense but in terms of nature, ecology, economics and culture – the awareness that we are parts of a common whole and that those parts affect each other.
Such awareness should increase our sense of responsibility, which should also extend to the Black Sea region. Our responsibility entitles us to demand that the Black Sea basin be made much safer than hitherto. It should be mentioned in passing that disasters on a smaller scale have occurred several times in the recent past.
In this respect the following demands are particularly important. First and foremost, monitoring of the situation in the Black Sea – both now, barely a month after the disaster, and much later on.
The next demand is to get the European Union’s neighbouring countries, at long last, to begin modernising their fleets, especially their tankers. The Black Sea is turning blacker and blacker, not from the natural causes to which it owes its name but from the colour of crude oil. It could become one huge oil container. Pressure must be brought to bear on the EU’s neighbouring countries to impose a swift ban on the use of obsolete single hull tankers.
I therefore ask the House to adopt the motion for a resolution that has been tabled, in which we call on the Council and Commission to step up cooperation with non-EU riparian states. A land border can be closed relatively easily, but a sea border cannot. As we shall not be building dams, the action proposed is also in our own interests."@en1
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"Stanisław Jałowiecki,"1
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