Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-13-Speech-3-197"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would, first of all, like to thank and congratulate the three rapporteurs, Mr Sterckx, Mr Mastorakis and Mr Esclopé, on their magnificent reports on the safety of maritime traffic, the creation of a European Maritime Safety Agency and compensation for oil pollution. Furthermore, I would like to thank them for having presented and prepared these reports within such a short timescale and for the attention they have paid to the problem of maritime safety.
We accept that the external evaluation of the Agency be subject to the conditions set by the Administrative Board, as Amendment No 17 requests in part, although we do not think it is necessary to repeat the evaluation every 5 years as it suggests.
With regard to the visits which the officials of the agencies must make to the Member States, the Commission wishes the national administrations to actively participate in them and to assist them. We cannot therefore accept either Amendment No 6 or No 5, which contravene this objective.
I understand the justification for Amendment No 18, but for reasons of legal certainty I cannot accept it, since the term ‘independent’ adds nothing to a body with its own legal personality.
Nor can I accept Amendments Nos 8 and 12, which imply that it is not necessary for the Commission to approve the Agency’s programme, nor Amendments Nos 13 and 25, according to which the decision to make visits to the Member States should depend on a Commission opinion, rather than on its agreement. Supervising the implementation of the Community
will remain the responsibility of the Commission and the Agency cannot replace us in this task. Lastly, the Commission cannot agree with Amendments Nos 11 and 24, which affect the impartiality of the executive director.
With regard to the third proposal on responsibility and compensation for the dumping of oil, I would like to congratulate Mr Esclopé and Parliament on your work on such a complex issue.
I would like to make it clear that the problems do not relate to the underlying objectives, but only to the means of achieving these objectives and we should try to solve all the problems by means of a proposal designed to deal with one specific issue: the lack of adequate compensation in the case of serious oil pollution. Furthermore, I agree with what Mr Esclopé has said. If we now add to this proposal the problems relating to other types of dumping, to pollution from chemical dumping or from the cleaning out of bilge, we will eventually paralyse the initiative.
These types of proposals are specifically related to Conventions which are awaiting ratification and which must be ratified over the next few years. I am also prepared for us to also make some regional proposals in the event that existing Conventions are not ratified by a sufficient number of States that are members of the IMO. But since there is already an international proposal, I believe that we should not be too hasty. The perfect is the enemy of the good. Let us concentrate on the dumping of oil, on which we have data and certain factors which will allow us to move forward quickly.
We can accept three groups of amendments which, altogether, make up more or less half of them.
The first, the nineteen amendments which seek to extend the scope of the Regulation to cover substances other than oil, such as chemical and combustible substances, are not acceptable, as I have pointed out. The second group of amendments, which refer to the role of shipowners in the COPE Fund, Amendments Nos 22 to 25 and 50, which seek to introduce compulsory contributions for shipowners, are not compatible with international law, since the international rules in force do not allow demands for additional compensation from shipowners, unless the accident has been caused by fraudulent behaviour.
This is one of the problems detected by the Commission in the international system in force, which must be rectified on an international level and we are committed to working on this. Nevertheless, given the current situation, requiring shipowners to participate in compensation for damages would contravene the current international rules and we are therefore unable to accept such a proposal.
However, like many of today’s speakers, I regret the fact that we are discussing the Erika II package without having yet adopted Erika I, although I hope that within the conciliation procedure we will achieve a positive result as soon as possible.
But I must say that Amendments Nos 29, 31, 34 to 42, 52 and 57 also cause problems for the Commission because their aim is to strengthen the participation of the local representatives of the polluted region in the COPE Fund committee procedures. I would remind you that this committee is covered by the Decision on commitology and Community law does not allow its composition to be changed.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 19, which proposes removing the paragraph establishing the possibility of rejecting compensation to claimants involved in the accident, that is to say shipowners, charterers and company directors. It would not make sense to compensate those responsible for the pollution. I therefore prefer to keep this paragraph, which allows the rejection of payments to the parties most involved in the pollution.
We have problems with Amendment No 28, which proposes reducing the period for collecting contributions, and lastly, with Amendments Nos 51, 52, 54 and 55, which create difficulties in practice because they fall outside the scope of the proposal.
All the others, either in their entirety or in part, can be accepted. They are Nos 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 10, 11, 20, 30, 32, 33, and from 43 to 49.
I will end by once again thanking the rapporteurs for the speed and quality of their work, as well as the whole of the committee and Parliament as a whole for their support for the Erika I and Erika II packages in their entirety. I hope that all the remaining stages of negotiations in both forums will maintain the highest quality in terms of the texts and the proposals, and will be completed as quickly as possible. I would also like to say that before the end of the year we shall be submitting proposals on safety in the transportation of persons, of passengers.
We would have liked to achieve everything by now, but we must understand that sometimes we cannot achieve what everybody wants. We have, however, taken very significant steps forward which, I insist, have already had real consequences by improving safety on our seas.
Nevertheless, I would also like to say that the Erika I and Erika II packages are already having practical effects within the International Maritime Organisation, where we have managed to make progress on making double-hulled or similar ships compulsory for the transportation of oil, and also with regard to the current discussion on increasing the figures in order to cover liabilities, which will very possibly exceed USD 300 million – they are currently 180 million – and also in relation to countries such as Cyprus and Malta which – and I address this to Mr Rack – are making an enormous effort to improve the characteristics of their fleets within the framework of their incorporation into the European Union, accepting the requirements of the Erika I and Erika II packages before they enter into force.
Before the end of the year, I will present a proposal on safety on ferries, although we know what happened in the case of the
: they were watching football. Greek justice is taking action. I believe we must mark out territories. It is the Member States who have all the responsibilities in the criminal field.
I will refer to the proposed directive on maritime traffic, which is the most advanced one in terms of its preparation and I believe this is indicated by the consensus in relation to it. We broadly support all the amendments, with slight modifications of the wording of those which are aimed at improving or specifying the scope of the text. Also, in part, with some modifications, Amendments Nos 6 and 18, which are extremely important, on the refuge area. With some modifications, the amendments which are aimed at improving the assessment of the implementation of the Directive on the ground, specifically Amendments Nos 7, 20 and 21. We cannot accept the current wording of Amendment No 11 on black boxes – although I understand the rapporteur’s objectives, the formulation used makes this requirement dependent on a prior decision by the IMO. We are not prepared to accept this. If the IMO is able to make progress, we will have to move ahead; but we know that good work is being done within the International Maritime Organisation and what we want is to put more pressure on, as we have done in the case of double hulls.
With regard to the proposal for the European Maritime Safety Agency, I would thank you for Parliament’s positive approach to our proposal and the support it is giving us. This is not a purely administrative measure, but rather the Agency will increase the public visibility of the European Union’s commitment to increasing maritime safety to the highest possible level and preventing pollution from ships. I would like to say to those people who are concerned that the Agency may become another Community bureaucratic body, that the Agency will enable the Member States to be part of and participate in an area which, as we all know, involves national and Community responsibilities and competences and through which we have to seek integration in order to better coordinate these actions. The Agency will enable the Commission and the Member States to work together in an independent body and that is one of its advantages.
Parliament’s amendments do not alter the spirit of the Commission’s proposal and focus principally on the administrative structure. The Commission supports Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7, 15, 16, 21 and 22 and we can also accept Amendment No 4, which makes it possible for the Agency to offer technical assistance to the candidate countries without a specific request from the Commission. We can also accept Amendments Nos 14 and 10, which clarify the mandate of the principal directors of this body.
In relation to Amendments Nos 9, 20, 27 and 28, on the Administrative Board, I must say that we accept Amendments Nos 9 and 27, insofar as they eliminate the presence of Parliament and, if these amendments are incorporated, we will have to make the necessary adjustments.
In relation to the location of the Agency, Amendment No 19 seems more logical than No 29. Objective criteria are specified for the selection and I fully agree with this and believe that it can be incorporated."@en1
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