Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-30-Speech-4-013"
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"en.20001130.1.4-013"2
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".
Mr President, the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 95/21/EC deals with the selection of ships for inspection and items for inspection. Amending the directive in terms of greater stringency in its application and the harmonisation of legislation, especially regarding the selection of ships for inspection and the scope of the different types of selection is clearly a positive step. Even then, the European Union would need to ensure that current legislation is enforced by the Member States. The fact is that Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, which are obliged to inspect 25% of ships, do not do so. Worse still, the existing directives, even though they date from 1995, have still not been transposed into national legislation in Italy and Portugal.
In order for Member States to enforce existing legislation, they must allocate sufficient resources to inspections so as to ensure the proper application of international conventions and the directive amended by the European Parliament. In concrete terms, this means employing additional inspectors, broadening the competences and the scope of inspection, notably concerning respect for social standards and for shipboard living and working conditions, and their publication. Since human error is the root cause of 70% of accidents, the inspection of crews, their living and working conditions, their level of training and their numbers must be an integral part of a ship’s inspection. Non-compliance with these standards must be a reason to detain a ship and to impose sanctions.
Furthermore, the Commission proposals still do not go far enough: they, in fact, concern no more than twenty or so ships. The positions adopted by the French Presidency, which we have heard elsewhere, which would water down the Commission proposals even further, such as amending the proportion of ships targeted with the aim of reducing inspections by half, are naturally unacceptable. I am in complete agreement with the rapporteur about refusing port access to ships posing a serious risk, irrespective of age, and those that have been flying a flag of convenience for more than three years. We must also go further and ban them from sailing in Community waters.
To this end, we must strengthen international maritime law. Moreover, it seems to me that we need to be more restrictive concerning flags of convenience, especially those of Member States, as well as those, Minister, of the islands of Kerguelen, Wallis and Fortuna in the case of France.
I will support this report and the Commission’s amendments, but I call on the Members of Parliament to also support the amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on social standards."@en1
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