Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-30-Speech-4-071"
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"en.20001130.2.4-071"2
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".
Accidents at sea, marine pollution, unacceptable health and safety conditions on board ships and the over-exploitation of crews are simply expressions of the criminal unaccountability of big shipowners and the policies which serve them at national, regional and international level. The EU's policy merely maintains and extends this unaccountability, given that even the inadequate protective measures decided under pressure from the grass-roots movement will never be applied.
Regional decisions on safety at sea seriously undermine the role of the International Maritime Organisation (ΙΜΟ) and the economic war being waged exerts a constant downward pressure on safety regulations, which are sacrificed to profit. At the same time, big shipowners ply their trade uncontrolled under flags of convenience and the state of world shipping goes from bad to worse. The unaccountability of shipowners is being bolstered by the privatisation of shipping registers, which shipowners now control, and by the lack of any basic inspection controls or other form of involvement on the part of government authorities.
We urgently need to take preventative action for ships flying under the flag of Member States of the European Union, to improve existing legislation and, more importantly, to ensure that it is applied. We need to change the system of shipping registers by moving them from the private to the public sector. We also need to extend seaworthiness surveys and inspections by the competent authorities to ships of any nationality sailing in the territorial waters of the Member States and to promote similar measures at international level under resolutions by the ΙΜΟ, paying particular attention and applying particularly strict measures to ships sailing under flags of convenience. Merchant ships need to be inspected by government departments with suitably trained staff and proper technological facilities, with the active involvement of the shipping trade union movement.
A real policy to protect safety at sea, human life at sea and the environment needs, first and foremost, to address the unaccountability of shipowners, apply strict measures to punish their infringements, stipulate how ships are to be crewed in keeping with their enhanced requirements, help to improve living and working conditions on board ship and ensure that the trade union movement is properly involved when decisions are taken on shipping, especially on safety issues.
Although the proposal to amend the current Directive on ship inspections and the Watts report fall far short of what is actually required, they are a step in the right direction and the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece have therefore voted in favour of the report."@en1
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