Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-23-Speech-2-273"
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"en.20080923.34.2-273"2
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to begin, may I just remind you all here that maritime safety must remain a priority on the European political agenda. We cannot wait for another major accident to happen at sea to make us realise that maritime safety is a priority for us as political leaders, and also for the population, which will no longer put up with seeing its coasts polluted, not to mention the fact that these accidents constitute an environmental catastrophe and cause financial disasters.
The Council wants more.
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The first reading in Parliament was in April 2007. It has taken the Council more than a year to advise us of its Common Positions and this has only been on five of the seven texts in the package. I must admit that I find this quite difficult to accept.
It can, of course, happen that some issues raise major problems and it can be difficult to reach agreement. At least we agree on the package of legislation, which is indeed complicated, but I see few valid reasons to prevent agreement on technical yet concrete texts that actually form a very coherent whole. As I recall, a year ago we were all very happy – even pleased with ourselves. Clearly, along with my fellow Members, I would like to know why it has taken the Council so long to look at this dossier, and I would also like the Council to tell us what prevented it from reaching agreement on two important proposals, namely shipowners’ civil liability and flag state obligations, particularly because the flag state text is the natural complement to my report on port state control. In view of this, it is quite easy to see how the interaction of one text with the other texts fully justifies this ‘package’ approach and the need for agreement on all of them.
I may sound a bit harsh, but I want to know what is going on. However, I applaud the genuine efforts made by the French Presidency of the EU, which has tried to resolve the blockage and revive discussions on the two proposals currently missing: those of the Savary and Fernandez reports. It has not been a lack of progress on each of our texts or individual difficulties with each proposal that have prevented us from reaching agreement with the Council, but the fact that two proposals are not in the package at the moment, which obviously presents a problem for all the rapporteurs.
Personally, I believe we will soon come to an agreement on each of the proposals, because we will have to, even if the conciliation procedure is used. Anyway, I know that the French Presidency is working on it and I hope it will succeed.
I am not particularly concerned for my report on port state control because I know that at the end of our informal trialogue many problems were resolved. Apart from various differences in formulation, three major differences with the Council remain, for which my preference was to reinstate Parliament’s First Reading position.
The first point was the application of the Directive to anchorages, which is a key issue for maritime safety. We must include anchorages in this text. I believe we are sending the message of a firm and consistent policy. Ships that are not up to standard must not be able to escape inspection, regardless of their shipping route and where they are calling in European waters.
The second point concerns the application of permanent bans. Once again, I believe this is a measure that should be kept as a deterrent for bad behaviour. This measure should, in fact, be used only rarely because there should be few vessels that meet its conditions of application, but it must exist for vessels that are not up to standard so that these vessels are not likely to present new problems and leave a feeling of impunity.
The third point concerns the flexibility measures for the application of the inspection system. At First Reading we chose flexibility mechanisms based on specific circumstances; for example, inspections missed because bad weather prevents inspections from being carried out, or where safety conditions are not met. The possibility was included of postponing the inspection of a vessel from one Community port to the next."@en1
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