Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-12-Speech-2-377"
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"en.20050412.34.2-377"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Parliament’s political groups, the shadow rapporteurs in particular, for their excellent levels of cooperation. The directive before us is an historic one: emissions from ships will be cut for the first time. The background to this is Annex VI to the MARPOL Convention, an agreement negotiated within the International Maritime Organisation IMO. This document states that certain sea areas can be defined as sulphur emission control areas. The highest permitted sulphur content in marine fuel in those areas is 1.5%. This is approximately half of the sulphur content of the most commonly used bunker oil currently, in which the average content is 2.7%. The sulphur emission control areas will be established in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel. In addition, the same sulphur limit is laid down for passenger ferries. From the year 2010 onwards a 0.1% fuel sulphur limit is to be introduced for ships at berth in ports.
It is indeed high time to limit emissions from ships. Sulphur dioxide causes acid rain and damages both human health and the natural environment. The amount that billows up from solid earth wells has been dramatically reduced. For example in my own country, Finland, these emissions have dropped to a level which is below one seventh of the level in the 80s. On the other hand, ships are belching out more and more sulphur dioxide into the sky. A few years ago the sulphur emissions from ships in the Baltic Sea exceeded total emissions in Sweden.
Despite the restrictions laid down by this directive, the sulphur emissions in EU sea areas will in 10–12 years exceed the total for emissions from all power stations, factories and cars in the EU Member States. Even after the new restrictions, the allowed sulphur content of marine fuel can be as much as 300 times more than that in the fuel tank of an articulated lorry, even where sulphur use is restricted such as the Baltic Sea. The difference is even greater in the Mediterranean and other areas, not covered by the new restriction. Also the sulphur emissions of a cargo ship per tonne of freight are many hundred times greater than with an articulated lorry.
Parliament did indeed want to go further in its first reading and demanded that the 1.5% sulphur limit should be extended to all EU sea areas and later on a further tightening of the limit down to 0.5% should follow. Calculations made by computer models used by the Commission show this to be viable. The extension of the 0.5% marine fuel sulphur content limit to all EU seas would produce human health benefits by, for example, decreasing the incidences of asthma and allergies by at least twofold and possibly even tenfold compared with costs incurred.
The Council, however, rejected Parliament’s additional demands at first reading At second reading a clear majority of the Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety nevertheless decided to support the main issues of the first reading. In negotiations with the Council on the compromise reached in the first reading, many Member States announced that they would be prepared to turn down the whole reform. Consequently, the next stages of limiting emissions, as required by Parliament, could not be recorded in the directive itself. Instead, the Commission made a commitment, by a separate declaration, to prepare new and stricter emission limits. The declaration contains a clear reference to tightening the sulphur limit to 0.5% or below and to the use of economic means to manage it. These issues will be debated in connection with the revision of the directive in 2008.
It was further recorded in the directive that the Commission and the Council are committed to promote through IMO the establishing of new sulphur emission control areas and making the sulphur limit more stringent. The sulphur limit referred to here is also 0.5%. In other words, we have the Commission’s and the Council’s commitments to tighten the limits of emissions from ships, as required by Parliament.
In connection with sulphur dioxide emissions we have become accustomed to the issue of acid rain, which is damaging to the natural environment and buildings, but which is also a serious and growing health problem. In the air sulphur dioxide forms particulate matter, which damages our lungs. According to a recent study, the number of people suffering from health problems caused by the particle matter is possibly as much as double previous estimates.
The natural environment is particularly vulnerable in the north, but peoples’ lungs are the same on coastal areas of the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. We must therefore continue to limit sulphur emissions from ships. I trust that the Commission and the Council will stand by their commitments."@en1
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