Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-167"
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"en.20010613.5.3-167"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Erika I, which is aimed at preventing environmental disasters from oil spills before the event, is now supplemented by Erika II, which is also designed as an instrument for accurately assessing the consequences of such disasters and for improving the system of compensation of the victims, the aspect on which my report concentrates.
Indeed, the conventions on which this extension depends have yet to be ratified. So, does the European Parliament really want this fund? Allow me to point out that we want the victims of these major disasters, hitherto caused solely by oil spills, to be compensated as fully and speedily as possible.
That being so, how can we introduce a third tier of compensation, the COPE Fund, whose operation and procedures are modelled on the existing international IOPC system, by referring to conventions that the IOPC Convention has not yet recognised?
If the Committee on Transport's amendments are adopted, I believe there is a great risk, too great a risk, of putting off indefinitely all hope of rapidly creating the COPE Fund.
Aside from our amendments on the representative nature of the chosen local representatives in the decision-making on compensation, our requests for a separate vote are aimed at restoring to some extent the purpose of the initial proposal and thus opening the way to the creation of a supplementary compensation fund at Community level. This really is urgently necessary. How could we not be in favour of establishing liability for all forms of pollution…
...as also of holding all the players involved financially liable? We must assume our responsibilities. Should we engage in drawing-room discussions of environmental theory, or should we establish, without delay...
We naturally support that objective and believe it crucial to give it priority in the light of the situation we have today as a result, in particular, of the
disaster.
At present, an international liability and compensation regime exists covering damage caused by oil pollution from ships, as established by the 1969 CCL Convention and the 1971 IOPC Convention, both of which were amended by the 1992 protocols. These two conventions have established a two-tier liability system, based on strict though unfortunately very limited liability for ship owners and on a compensation fund to which oil receivers contribute.
Among many other countries in the world, all EU Member States with a coastline are now parties to both protocols, except for Portugal, which has not yet completed the ratification procedures. The USA, which has its own compensation system, with the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, does not participate in this regime.
The main problem with these two funds is still their ceiling of EUR 200 million. But apart from the inadequacy of this amount – in fact the
spill is going to cost far more, an estimated amount of more than EUR 300 million – the procedure for releasing the money is not speedy enough. The IOPC Fund can only distribute what money it has and therefore has to await the full list of claims presented before it can determine the maximum rate at which it can compensate the victims. As an example, the estimates for the
suggest that only two thirds of the amounts claimed by the victims can be reimbursed and that this process will take far too long, even if provisional amounts payments are made in the interim.
The first step to remedy this situation is, therefore, to consult the IMO, which is what the Council did, with a view to revising the Civil Liability Convention and the IOPC Convention and tackling a number of structural dysfunctions. First, the ceiling needs to be raised: a first rise would be scheduled for 2003, to the level of EUR 300 million. Next, the scope of liability should be widened to include all those involved in the transport chain. Lastly, the conventions should be extended to include dangerous substances other than oil.
Of course we endorse that approach, but in the absence of reforms, which would be difficult to carry through, Europe had to take action by putting forward an appropriate proposal of its own.
The Commission therefore proposed the creation of a Community fund, called the COPE Fund, which would supplement the IOPC Fund and be modelled on it, but would have a ceiling of EUR 1 billion. This fund would intervene only in the event of maritime accidents and would be funded by contributions from oil companies established in the Member States and receiving more than 150 000 tonnes of oil a year. It would be managed by the Commission, assisted by a committee of Member State representatives.
At this point, let me explain the implications of tomorrow’s vote. Since the vote we conducted in the Committee on Transport, we in fact believe that extending the scope to all dangerous substances, a proposal supported by the parliamentary right and left, however laudable, would be bound to cause a serious logjam in the system."@en1
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