Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-18-Speech-2-135"
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"en.20031118.5.2-135"2
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"Mr President, I welcome the Commission proposal and I wish to thank Mrs Miguélez Ramos for her very well prepared report. The Commission proposal is especially necessary in order to clarify the new international instruments adopted last year by the International Maritime Organisation. The tragic events of 11 September showed that every production sector, mode of transport or building can easily fall prey to a terrorist attack. Preventive and protective action is also urgently needed for other threats to security at sea, such as piracy and sabotage. It is nevertheless important that the EU does not needlessly rush to adopt measures but instead calmly keeps to the framework of the timetable that has already been drawn up by the IMO, which, as it is, is very rigorous and demanding.
In today’s changing world I see international cooperation as being of priority importance in order to improve security for ships and port facilities and a far better alternative to the unilateral measures that were adopted earlier on. It is in the EU’s own interests to operate in multilateral systems, whilst reinforcing them at the same time. Furthermore, cooperation with Russia is particularly important.
I share Commissioner Bolkestein’s concern regarding the possible negative effects on trade that unilateral security measures would have. There is a danger that the unilateral agreements in the container sector made in collaboration by American and some European ports will distort competition. In this regard I welcome the current negotiations between the Commission and the United States of America to cover the Container Security Initiative agreements.
The Commission proposal does not really differ in content from the IMO instruments that have been drawn up exclusively for international shipping. For that reason, I think it is questionable whether the same instruments should be interpreted in the EU to apply equally to domestic transport services in the Member States. Taking the costs and other difficulties resulting from compliance with security measures such as these into account, I see no need to go any further than the IMO conventions. The power of decision to apply measures to individual countries’ domestic transport systems must in any case remain with the Member States, which are best placed to assess the situation. It would, for example, be absurd if ferries operating in the internal waters of Finland, with its thousands of lakes, had to endure thorough security checks if there were no particular threats to security anyway."@en1
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