Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-18-Speech-2-544"
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"en.20100518.36.2-544"2
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"Madam President, 20 April was a dark day for the Gulf of Mexico, for the United States of America, nay, for the whole world. For exactly four weeks now, the industry and the authorities have been trying everything – without conclusive success thus far – to bring a halt to the enormous oil leak and to minimise the environmental damage, in particular, on the coast.
We are planning a second meeting in the upcoming months, when we have a better understanding of the causes of the accident, in order to evaluate the situation and to learn the lessons for Europe from the accident in the Gulf of Mexico.
At this point in time, when the causes and circumstances have not yet been analysed, it would be premature to draw conclusions or to call for new legislative initiatives. If it should transpire, however, that a regulatory response is needed, I can assure you that the Commission will waste no time in submitting proposals for European legislation to you.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, there are constant efforts in Europe to prevent a similar tragedy over here. Should a similar accident nonetheless occur, we have a number of measures and mechanisms to react effectively and without delay, and to minimise the magnitude of any such accident for citizens and the environment in Europe.
I will be more than happy to report back to you after our next meeting on what we are planning.
The accident throws into sharp relief the risks associated with oil and gas supply works out at sea. The public perception has increased, and quite rightly so, not only in the United States, but also in Europe. Europe, together with Norway, produces more than 200 million tonnes of crude oil a year, most of it from the North Sea.
Even if the exploration for and conveying of oil and gas does not take place under comparably extreme conditions or at the same depths as in the Gulf of Mexico, we must still plan for the possibility of an accident in the EU and be ready for it. We have the competent bodies and mechanisms in order to be able to react quickly to a potential accident.
There is the European Maritime Safety Agency, we have rescue boats, we have civil protection mechanisms, we have good coordination of assistance measures, and Commissioner Georgieva was thus able to offer European assistance for ongoing measures in the Gulf of Mexico from an early stage.
Our goal must be prevention, so as not to have to deal with the major clear-up after a disaster at all. Together with Commissioner Potočnik, I have therefore asked our offices to review applicable EU legislation. The European legislation represents the framework for safety and environmental protection measures, both in general and in the event of a specific accident.
Our directives ensure minimum safety standards for equipment and they contain detailed minimum standards for the health and safety of workers. We will now review all these legal texts to see whether they provide an adequate and optimal toolset for a similar disaster or a worst case scenario. This means close cooperation with the national regulatory authorities, as a major part of the safety provisions governing conveying oil and gas and health protection is in the hands of the Member States rather than our hands directly.
Of course, no set of regulations can offer a 100% guarantee. A lot depends on the approach and the behaviour of the operative field in our industry. We therefore have every reason to get together: politics and the industry must cooperate in order to ensure that the European environment and the public are as safe as possible.
I want to put safety and sustainability in the transport of oil and gas at the heart of our stakeholder conversations. That is why, in the last week, I hosted a gathering of high-ranking officials from the major energy firms active in European waters. Commissioner Georgieva was also there. In this technically-oriented meeting, we asked the industry to ensure that all possible efforts were made to prevent comparable accidents in the vicinity of European coasts.
We presented a catalogue of questions that were answered by the companies over the following days. There were 12 questions, and they very specifically included everything that is crucial to safety on oil platforms and gas platforms and for the waters, the coasts and the Member States. I see this meeting with the industry as the beginning of a process that will strengthen the transparency of the industry’s operations and promote compliance with the regulations and the application of best practice."@en1
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