Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-18-Speech-2-137"
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"en.20000118.5.2-137"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the Erika sank near my home and is still there, with 20 000 tonnes in its hold, the fate of which we are waiting to discover. It could have sunk anywhere. It happened to sink there, and Brittany, where I come from, should not apologise for the fact that geography has made it a peninsula, and the result is that it is often forced to clear up after shipwrecks.
My first thoughts are for the 26 Indian sailors, who were saved but of whom nothing has been said. There could have been deaths in this disaster and safety at sea means, above all, men’s lives. By now they are far away. It is a miracle that they were saved. So we are now experiencing the same thing that happened 20 years ago with the Amoco Cadiz; a wreck on the North coast, a wreck on the South coast, a wreck on the West coast. Things could well continue in the same way.
Commissioner, as time is very short, I would like to pick out the seven points which we feel, and you have already mentioned some of them, are essential to work on: double-hulled vessels in our waters as soon as possible and the strictest possible state control of ports. In particular, we must ensure that classification societies are compelled to make their reports public, as currently, we do not have access to them. Then, sanctions must be harmonised between the 15 Member States; they should not be different, but the same throughout the Union. We must be tougher on vessels flying flags of convenience, not because they are necessarily bad boats, but because amongst these boats there are many bad ones. We must improve information on all of the world’s ships, but provision has already been made for this. We must also target those responsible and take a tougher line with them.
With regard to this matter, I would like to know who owns the Erika, because the idea of a legal person under our law is one thing, but there are always real shareholders in the background. Where are the Erika’s owners? Perhaps they are in lovely villas by lovely beaches, getting a nice tan. We would like to know their names and their faces. Finally, there must be improvements in the training of crews. In our society there is no such thing as zero-risk, but we must at least ensure the greatest possible levels of safety."@en1
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