Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-30-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20001130.1.4-017"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on 18 January 2000 I brought you a cake of crude oil from the
which had come ashore on a beach. This oil cake symbolises the enormous amount of work we have to do to make our seas cleaner and maritime transport safer.
The
and the
are but the most recent names to date in the wrecking of an entire system. Firstly, the ecological system is being wrecked, with the natural marine heritage, flora and fauna destroyed or contaminated forever. Then there is social wrecking, with gangs of third-world seafarers, modern-day galley slaves, exploited literally to the point of slavery. Finally, we have economic wrecking, the result of untrammelled liberalism in maritime matters. The liberal tide of free trade which has been unleashed has swallowed up all safeguards, all preventative action and, ultimately, all morals, only to become engulfed itself in its own excesses, thereby revealing the lack of any Community maritime policy worthy of the name.
Who today answers for the integrity and healthy conditions of maritime transport? What authorities claim to control and stamp out trade on the high seas, which is more maritime trafficking than maritime traffic? Nobody. What more proof do we need than these coffin ships fit only for the scrap yard, these thirty-year old single-hull tubs that take to the seas in stormy weather? Eight thousand of the ninety thousand ships plying the seas around the world are sub-standard in terms of safety, and four thousand are carrying hazardous substances. In the accident barometer measured against the gauge of shipwrecks the traditional mercury has been replaced by oil or residual acid.
Faced with the disastrous and anarchic situation in maritime transport, Europe has taken up the challenge and, just 11 months after the loss of the
will be in a position to announce that never has a procedure been worked out quite as quickly. This powerful political signal is in our hands. It is up to us to adopt the ‘Erika I’ package and it is up to the Council to accept its final amendments. In responding favourably to this acceleration of the timetable, our group has not, however, given up on the fundamental demands for the enhanced safety of the marine environment. The revisions of the directives concerning port and ship inspections should get rid of the lame ducks as far as the classification societies are concerned and appreciably increase the number of inspectors in the Member States, provided, however, that the latter provide adequate resources to achieve this.
But we are also waiting impatiently for the second package, ‘Erika II’, with the establishment of a maritime agency and outline plans for a European coastguard. We may regret the delay in the timetable for the mandatory double hull for oil tankers and the Council’s abandoning of the proposed financial incentive system setting up differential charging of port and pilotage dues applicable to oil tankers, depending on whether they have a single or a double hull. Nevertheless, we support this report which, with its revision clause, provides for the so-called American timetable to be given a second chance in the event of failure at the Marpol Convention in April 2001.
We are told that zero risk does not exist, but it has to be said that zero responsibility must not exist either. With the ‘Erika I’ package we will be placing the first foundation stone of a substantive European maritime safety policy, in anticipation, of course, of the ‘Erika II’ package."@en1
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