Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-10-Speech-2-339"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20090310.31.2-339"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, here we are at the end of a legislative marathon that, as has been mentioned, has taken ten years and that, as we were reminded in a debate this morning, has been given the inappropriate name of ‘Erika III’.
I would also say that, in political terms, this is a truly remarkable success for the Community, because the link between the Commission and Parliament has made it possible to produce a very complicated text and piece of legislation about which the Member States were very reticent.
I would like to thank Mr Tajani and the Commission. I would also like to thank the French Presidency, because I think that Mr Bussereau realised that this could be something very important during the French Presidency, and I would like to thank all of my fellow Members, because everyone here knows that we made use of subterfuge and magic tricks to get to this point. We have only managed to bring in this maritime package in as much as we have been united, and have shown solidarity to such an extent that certain fellow Members have, so to speak, inherited some stowaways, such as my text and that of Mr Fernandes, which the Council did not want.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have succeeded. I would have liked to go into the details of my report, but I think I will have some time to speak at the end, which will give me the opportunity to do so.
It is inappropriate because, after the
there was the
; after the
; and, after the
there were unfortunately plenty of other maritime disasters both in European waters and beyond.
Above all, though, it is inappropriate because, as Mr Sterckx pointed out, this is cool legislation, for the first time – in other words, it is free of the passions, excesses and polemics that take over in the wake of disasters such as the
and the
. I think it is very much to the credit of Mr Barrot and the Commission that they have proposed it, but it was also a formidably difficult matter.
The Member States are not exactly inclined to legislate in fields like this when nothing serious has happened; sometimes, on the other hand, they go overboard with the legislation when there are accidents. In any event, this really is a major piece of legislation, since it contains seven texts.
It aims to make the European maritime space – or rather, that of the Member States – one of the safest in the world. This is perfectly justified given that it is also one of the busiest in the world and, in geographical terms, one of the most complicated in the world. We have a number of straits, including the Bosphorus, Gibraltar and Pas-de-Calais – through which 800 commercial ships pass every day – which are among the largest ports on the planet.
We therefore had a lot of work to do, not, unfortunately, to ensure that there are no more accidents – life will always be random – but so that we could be sure that we had done our best to prevent them, and also to punish the causes of any such accidents.
The structure of this package is simple: it is a virtuous circle, in which each link in the transport chain – from the port state to the insurer, via the charterer, the classification society and the flag state – is responsible for its own actions and in some way applies pressure – or at least that is what we are betting on – to clean up transport conditions and to ensure that they are using a responsible transporter that complies with the standards.
Thinking about it, moreover, perhaps it would have been worth basing our model, in terms of its broad principles and structure, on what we are trying to do in the field of finance: The financial ratings agencies have been just as inadequate as the maritime classification societies.
Certain Member States accommodate flags of convenience, or tax havens as they are known in the field of finance. Certain operators are not wanted, and are subject to blacklisting or bans in the maritime field. This is, then, a quite exemplary piece of legislation and, moreover, one that fits into the framework of the IMO at international level."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples