Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-12-Speech-1-062"
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"en.20010212.4.1-062"2
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"Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, on an excellent report and also expressing my gratitude to the Commission for having made a genuinely serious attempt to get to grips with this important issue.
In recent years, the Commission has tabled a number of proposals for increasing maritime safety in various ways, and this as a result of a number of accidents affecting both people and the environment. The complaint may be made, as it has by myself in various connections, that the EU often reacts after the event instead of taking vigorous action beforehand, but it is good, nonetheless, that a real effort is now being made. Erika I has been succeeded by Erika II, and there is presumably more to come. During the next few months of the session, Parliament will have a number of reports on which to adopt positions in this area.
In this report, we are dealing with safety in connection with the loading and unloading of bulk carriers. There is no doubt that bulk carriers in particular have been especially badly affected by accidents, at least during the last decade. There are a great many reports and a good deal of statistical information to indicate this – a fact which the rapporteur in particular has pointed out. A good half of the vessels that have foundered have done so as a result of accidents involving the hull. Lack of maintenance is a cause of accidents of this type, but many accidents also occur in connection with loading and unloading.
Over the last decade, this has been observed by the UN’s maritime body, the IMO. A special report has called upon Member States, classification societies and shipping companies to be alert to errors in loading and unloading. A number of interim measures have been proposed, for example.
It is important to take an overall view of this problem. There is an explosive growth in the number of shipments. More and more of the traffic comes from Eastern and Central Europe or from third countries. This means that the way in which loads are secured is going to become one of the most important issues of all for us. We are concerned here not only with bulk carriers but also with other forms of shipping and other forms of transport. The fact that loads are not always adequately secured is now a growing problem for shipping and for road and rail transport. The Commission ought therefore to come back with proposals as to how these problems might be solved. Since this is not only, or even mainly, a problem for the EU but is a global issue, it is also important for the Commission to pursue issues of this kind further within the IMO or in other international contexts.
I should be grateful if the Commissioner could say something about the initiatives the Commission intends to go on taking on this important matter."@en1
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