Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-12-Speech-1-089"
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"en.20040112.7.1-089"2
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"Mr President, I would like to begin by deploring the fact that profit, competitiveness and the monopolising of resources all too often make people deaf and blind. The human and environmental costs of the economic warfare imposed on all the nations are devastating.
It is true that the sea is a space without borders, governed by the principle of freedom of shipping, but our role is to make carriers aware of their responsibility and therefore to make them answer for their deeds. That is why it is important to ensure, with this framework decision, that appropriate sanctions, criminal sanctions in particular, are applied to the persons responsible for illegal discharges of hydrocarbons and noxious liquid substances. The Member States really must adopt strict common provisions and a robust system of criminal sanctions.
Today, let us be clear. The Member States are often not equal to their duties and responsibilities in this area. True, the European Union has already considerably strengthened its legislation on maritime safety, but most Member States have applied the first 1995 directive on the control of shipping using Community ports very poorly. Then, following the
disaster, in December 1999 the European Union adopted five major texts on maritime safety. The two legislative packages were adopted in an exceptionally short space of time, but on 19 November 2002, the day the
was wrecked, only one Member State – Denmark – had transposed one of those five texts into its national law.
At the December 2002 Copenhagen European Council, the European Union expressed its determination to adopt every measure necessary to prevent a recurrence of such a disaster. The framework decision that we are going to adopt tomorrow complements the 2003 directive on pollution by ships, which was a first important step. The European Parliament’s Temporary Committee on the
disaster was finally formed last December, after 10 months of obstruction. That committee will have to assess the responsibilities of the maritime authorities and governments of the Member States in the management of maritime disasters.
We must find a solution that will ensure that the Member States comply with the measures adopted by the European Union in the field of maritime safety and agree to receive vessels in distress in harbours of refuge. I repeat, we must enforce every liability, be it private or public, involved in these environmental crimes."@en1
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