Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-04-Speech-2-354"
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Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone has gone to watch the football, and I wish I were with them, since the match is being played in my electoral district in the beautiful Ruhr, but it must not be forgotten that there is something venerable about the directive that we are considering and it is to that that we must give our undivided attention, for the work of this House must not be allowed to take second place to football, even to a footballing event like this one.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism took the line that the technical regulations in the annex to the directive, including those in Chapter 15, ‘Special provisions for passenger vessels’, which, because of protracted negotiations and long translation times are still as they were during the 2004 negotiations, should be covered by the comitology procedure. The committee was in favour of an amendment to this effect, that being the only way in which it can be ensured that the harmonisation of the existing legal systems can be accomplished without delay and also that industry and trade be afforded legal certainty, and so I ask you to give your support to this one amendment at second reading too.
In conclusion, I would like to use this opportunity to express to the Council and the Commission, but also, of course, to my colleagues, my warmest thanks for their good cooperation on this dossier. In thanking the House for its attention, all I can say now is ‘ship ahoy!’
As we now move to the second reading of the draft directive on the technical requirements for inland waterway vessels, we are handling a relic from the previous century, for it was as long ago as December 1997 that the Commission submitted a proposal in respect of the previous directive, 82/714/EEC, which was superannuated even then, but is still in force today, and this proposal’s first reading in this House was in October 1998. Then, on 1 May 1999, came the Treaty of Amsterdam, and with it codecision on transport matters, and so the first reading had to be repeated in September 1999, although Parliament reiterated its position from the ‘first’ first reading – a never ending story!
A few months into the new century, in July 2000, the Commission came up with a modified draft, which took account of Parliament’s wishes.
What is this all about? It has to do with creating, once and for all, the same conditions everywhere for European inland waterway transport, the intention being that updated technical requirements should ensure that traffic on Europe’s internal waterways is safe and problem-free. In order to do this, the Community’s technical requirements had to be harmonised with the standards governing navigation of the Rhine, for safety considerations had previously led the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine not to recognise the technical approval of vessels on the basis of the former directive.
The directive to be revised – 82/714/EEC – also has other defects, among them the fact that it does not apply to passenger ships and floating plant such as construction vessels, and the safety requirements are, of course, as they were in the 1970s. Free shipping on all the EU’s inland waterways is, however, dependent on the harmonisation of the technical requirements and safety standards with the highest standard, and that applies not only to the free movement of goods but also to the guaranteeing of high safety, environmental and social standards.
Until now, Community law has been capable of being applied only where the provisions of the Convention of Mannheim are not in force; that Convention, which was signed on 17 October 1868, determined the principles that still largely apply today to the navigation of the Rhine, although the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine had already been constituted under an annex to the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Up to now, then, the EU has been unable to adopt any legislative act applicable to the Rhine, even though 80% of all goods transported on European inland waterways travel on it.
Only since an additional protocol to the Mannheim Convention entered into force in December 2004 has the mutual recognition of ships’ certificates been possible, and, in fact, the most important aspect of the new directive is the introduction of a standard ship’s certificate for inland waterway vessels within the EU. That has something to do with legal certainty.
There were still a few problems with the inclusion of sports boats of between 20 and 24 metres in length, which might well fall within the scope of both this directive and the so-called sports boats directive, No 94/25/EC, although this latter directive governs trade in sports boats and is, then, an internal market directive regulating the access of sports boats to the market. The revised directive on technical requirements for inland waterway vessels goes further than what is laid down in the sports boats directive only where safety considerations on inland waterways make this necessary, and so it does not contradict its provisions.
I might add that experience with sports boat traffic on the Rhine shows that the owners of sports boats have no problems with those rules applicable to the Rhine that are comparable to the technical regulations in the revised directive."@en1
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