Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-251"
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"en.20070424.46.2-251"2
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".
Thank you, Madam President. The third maritime package is a series of proposed directives aimed at improving maritime transport safety.
The directive and the IMO guidelines certainly do not aim to criminalise the captain and crew. Furthermore, the Member States are charged with ensuring that statements or any other information provided by witnesses are not misused in criminal investigations.
Every three years, the Commission will notify Parliament of the results of implementation and of the measures adopted under this directive. A supervisory role will thereby be implemented by an independent body, in this case the European Parliament, and Parliament will be able to adopt appropriate measures on the basis of proposals from the Commission.
The technical part of the directive, comprising Annexes I and II, includes the format and content for accident investigation reports: Annex I provides a brief synopsis and Annex II a list of the items of information that will form part of every accident report. I believe that this information will form a good basis for assessing the directive, and that the technical measures adopted on the basis of the information collected will lead to a reduction in the number of incidents.
The content of this directive is very similar to the one for investigations into industrial accidents, on which I worked for a number of years, and I feel that it is well written from a technical standpoint. I hope that the overall scheme contained in this directive can be used in the future with regard to other accidents involving transport by ship, for example in the case of maritime transport involving smaller vessels, or when investigating accidents in river transport. Thank you for your attention.
The fundamental objective of the entire package is to increase the responsibility of flag states. This responsibility is laid down under international maritime law, and it includes the task of carrying out technical investigations into all serious maritime incidents. Even if this package did not exist, there would still be a mandatory requirement to work with other participating countries.
The investigation, or rather the failure to investigate, which we witnessed following the
tanker disaster, demonstrated – as was confirmed by the conclusions of the temporary committee on improving safety at sea (MARE) – the need to develop more precise instructions that would make it possible, when incidents occur, to carry out investigations the conclusions of which could be published in real time and used to prevent such incidents occurring again.
The package as whole also contains technical measures aimed at reducing the risk of any kind of incident occurring. Prevention is the key concept here. The technical investigation of incidents should therefore arise in situations where all preventative measures have failed. The findings of an investigation should be used to ensure that the incident in question does not occur again.
The reasons an incident occurred must therefore be investigated. The directive applies to accidents involving the craft defined in Article 2, that is to say fishing vessels under 24m and passenger boats with more than 12 passengers. Given that other parts of the third package also contain a similar definition of applicability, and following discussion with Commission Members and experts, I do not recommend an extension to cover all fishing vessels not under 24m in length, as proposed in Amendment 25, even though I did originally recommend such an extension. The logical limit remains at 15m, as in the previous report.
The overall Commission proposal, supplemented and improved upon by the Amendments adopted in committee and published under numbers 2 to 24, constitutes a good technical directive. Pursuant to the SOLAS and MARPOL agreements and in accordance with Article 2 of the UNCLOS agreement, this proposal will identify who investigates incidents, and will define a decision-making mechanism as well as deadlines for making decisions.
A major problem for some EU Member States remains that of establishing a permanent investigation committee that is genuinely independent. There are such committees operating in the northern countries, but in the Mediterranean countries there is still a problem with the formal independence of such bodies. Only Spain has declared that it will soon establish a similar committee.
A further question arises over whether it is also possible for an independent investigating committee to work with authorisation from another state. I have been questioned about this and my answer is that there is nothing on a formal level to prevent it, and that it is in fact enshrined in Article 7(2) of the proposed directive. Slovenia and other smaller countries have inquired about this possibility.
A fundamental requirement of the directive is that technical investigations are conducted on the understanding that only their conclusions can be made available for other investigations. Similarly important is the requirement to follow the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) guidelines on the fair treatment of seafarers in the event of a maritime accident. We know how the crew was treated in Spain and how badly the entire investigation appears to have been conducted."@en1
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