Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-124"
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"en.20000118.5.2-124"2
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"Mr President, I shall be speaking on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, but also as an elected representative for Brittany, and I am therefore directly concerned and shocked by these events. Together with Mrs Grossetête and the PPE-DE Group, we tabled a motion for a resolution. I am pleased to see that we have today arrived at a compromise motion.
The Erika shipwreck is a truly European issue, firstly because it is disfiguring and polluting some of the most beautiful beaches in Europe, with extremely serious consequences for tourism, people who earn their living from the sea and environmentalists, and also because the underlying issue is the regulation and monitoring which ought naturally to be on a European scale. A disaster of this scale could almost certainly not have occurred along the American coastline, and why? Because the Americans managed to learn their lesson from the Exxon Valdez disaster and in 1990 to draw up the Oil Pollution Act, which makes the parties concerned aware of their responsibilities, as it makes it possible to hold the charterer liable, and is more restrictive, and, more especially, more carefully monitored thanks to various regulations and, in particular, the existence of the American coastguard.
If, I repeat, we had had regulations of this type, then this disaster would surely not have occurred. This is why we think that the applicable legislation must be reviewed, particularly the 1992 protocol which has exempted the shipowners, in this case the oil tanker charterer, from any liability. Well, if the charterer is exonerated, then of course he is less concerned with the inspections which oil companies are responsible for. The regulations must therefore be reviewed, and I thank you, Commissioner, for highlighting the inadequate features of current European regulations.
Moreover, as you said, monitoring must above all be stepped up: that of the flag state, that of the classification societies. You told us that RINA was an Italian classification register recognised by the Commission. What are the conditions for this recognition? What guarantees are there of its reliability? You are going to commission a fact-finding mission. We await the outcome with great interest. Inspections by the maritime authorities and supervision within European ports must also be tightened up. There is a Paris Memorandum in existence, let me remind you, which stipulates a minimum for inspection, that is, one in four of the vessels putting into European ports must be inspected by the maritime authorities of the country concerned. This obligation is not respected either in France or in many other European countries. Why not? What conclusions has the Commission already drawn or what conclusions is it going to draw? I also think it essential to step up the level of inspection that the charterer is responsible for, in this case, the oil company. If the charterer’s liability entails a financial commitment, then doubtless the inspection will be enforced to a greater extent.
Finally, we need some coordination of national maritime authorities in order to achieve some sort of European facility comparable to the coastguards who supervise the coasts of the United States."@en1
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