Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-04-Speech-1-110"
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"en.20060904.19.1-110"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner responsible for transport, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking all of those Members who have improved the quality of this report through their amendments in the Committee on Transport and Tourism. For my part, I have tried, through dialogue, to reach a fundamental consensus with everybody who has shown an interest in this work.
Finally, I am pleased with the consensus reached by the three institutions with a view to increasing transparency in the management of the resources given to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). In the past, we have seen other agencies accused of acting rather opaquely and outside of parliamentary control. In order to prevent such dangers, it has been agreed that, independently of the four-yearly assessment laid down in Article 7, the European Parliament should be regularly informed about the financial execution of the Agency’s resources.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are convinced that the new transparency practices will increase the Agency’s prestige, preventing it from acquiring the image of a purely bureaucratic instrument.
I shall end, ladies and gentlemen, by asking you to support this report, which has not just been my work, but is the result of the participation of all of the political groups and of the consensus between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
At the same time, as you have quite rightly pointed out, Commissioner, we have maintained a fluid and fruitful relationship with the Commission and the Council, which has resulted in compromise amendments that will make it possible to approve this report at first reading. There will therefore be no delay in the measures planned within the context of the new tasks entrusted to the Agency with a view to combating pollution caused by ships more effectively.
I shall very briefly mention the most characteristic aspects of the report. Firstly, we are talking about a regulation of a financial nature, which will make it possible to implement the Agency’s new tasks on the basis of a multiannual commitment of seven years, covering the period 2007-2013, in accordance with the new financial perspective. The new tasks assigned to the Agency are intended to increase maritime safety and prevent pollution caused by ships in Member States’ waters. The size of the commitment was initially set by the Commission at EUR 154 million, a sum that was consolidated by Parliament in the financial perspective and maintained without any cuts in the interinstitutional agreement reached last May. I must point out that that sum was initially indicative and that now it has the consensus of Parliament, the Council and the Commission. It is the minimum appropriation necessary for the Agency to carry out the new tasks assigned to it.
It should be remembered that the purpose for which the Agency has been created is to provide an appropriate framework for carrying out concrete actions aimed at increasing maritime safety and preventing pollution from ships in Member States’ waters, and also to provide the States with additional resources when national response resources are insufficient to deal with a large-scale incident. I must therefore say once again that the Agency has not been created in order to replace the actions of the Member States, but rather to act when the countries affected have insufficient resources to deal with disasters and to complement their actions.
The additional resources that we are talking about essentially consist of the long-term chartering of ships by means of stand-by contracts with commercial ship operators that have vessels of sufficient capacity that can be adapted for pollution response purposes. In response to a request for assistance from a Member State, such vessels would interrupt their customary commercial activities in order to deploy to the area in need.
With regard to the criteria for selecting priorities for the deployment of ships by region, as a result of the amendments presented and the agreements reached with the Council, the Agency will have to pay particular attention to regions that have been declared the most vulnerable, due to their greater susceptibility to accidents or deliberate pollution, given their characteristics and previous experiences. The Agency will, however, be able to assist in any other region within Community waters which needs help and which requests it.
The contracting of the first stand-by oil recovery vessels – a total of seven – was carried out in 2005 via a restricted tender procedure. Before the end of this year, 2006, the second tender procedure will have been concluded. This time, the Agency wants to conclude four new contracts for ships that will prioritise the two major Atlantic regions and the Mediterranean region. I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that this should be the opportunity to fulfil our commitment to Galicia. In any event, before beginning the contracting of stand-by vessels, the Agency will first carry out an inventory of the resources of the Member States, in order to ascertain how best to complement the needs of the Member States that the Agency must cover.
I would also like to stress that my objective of broadening the scope of the regulation, so that the Agency can deal with pollution by noxious substances, and not just oil pollution, has been achieved. Consensus has been reached in this regard through the use of the term ‘pollution caused by ships’, in order to describe pollution caused not just by oil, but also by noxious substances.
It is also worth pointing out that it has been agreed that the Agency should play a key role in coming years in the development of a centralised satellite imagery service for surveillance, early detection of pollution and identification of the ships responsible, increasing the availability of data and the effectiveness of the response to pollution caused by ships."@en1
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