Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-21-Speech-4-170"
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"en.20021121.7.4-170"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the
was a disaster waiting to happen and this is what makes the matter particularly intolerable and makes it all the more difficult for us to respond to the concerns, fear and desperation of the populations of Galicia and of the Minho in northern Portugal. This was a disaster waiting to happen because we know how enormously vulnerable our coasts are, particularly in Brittany, Galicia and in Portugal’s seas, both in continental Portugal and in the seas around Madeira and the Azores, which are all busy maritime passages and crossroads. It was also bound to happen because of the appalling conditions in which many ships still sail, carrying dangerous and highly polluting cargoes, whilst we are hesitant and slow at European and world level about adopting rigorous and mandatory measures for prevention and guidance, confiscation and destruction. The disaster was bound to happen, lastly, because it could be seen that the
would break up and sink, leaving questions as to whether the measures adopted at the time the emergency was declared one week ago and thereafter were correct and adequate.
We now have a time-bomb sitting at the bottom of the sea; nobody really knows what it is going to do and at the same time the ecological, social and economic effects of the spilt fuel are already terrible for hundreds of kilometres of coastline and the threat hanging over the coast, the river estuaries and the immediate future of hundreds of thousands of people who are directly and indirectly affected, both our Galician brethren and those in the north of Portugal, who are praying for the danger to recede, is enormous.
We must provide three types of response: to the present, to the future and to the past. We must respond to the present in four ways: we must mobilise all available means to monitor and minimise the polluting effects, rigorously investigate the risks arising from the sunken ship with 60 000 tonnes of oil in its tanks and keep them under strict control, we must make those responsible pay, provide sympathetic help for the frightened and worried populations by giving them all the help they need and by assisting the recovery of the local economy.
Next, we must respond to the future: we must get the European Safe Seas Agency up and running – I personally would like it to be based in Portugal – and increase resources for port and coastal inspection. Above all, however, we must go along with the positions of Commissioner de Palacio. Commissioner, do not hesitate: go right ahead. Parliament and the Council must prove themselves able to provide what these communities are calling for.
Lastly, we must respond to the past: preventing future disasters of this scale and more effectively limiting the damage caused require all the facts and the reactions to such disasters to be verified and established objectively and rigorously, enabling us to make a technical assessment of whether the reactions were right or wrong. We must assure ourselves that in the face of any similar emergency in future, all the competent authorities will be able to respond rapidly and courageously in the way that most effectively anticipates real environmental damage and risks and consequently is most able to limit and control these."@en1
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