Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-268"
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"en.20070424.46.2-268"2
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"Mr President, Minister Roth, Commissioner Barrot, if you were to single out one area in which the EU gets results for its citizens, the legislation on maritime safety would be a good example. There is a lot of sound international and global regulation of maritime safety, and we must never forget that shipping is a global industry. The EU has, in recent years, come to occupy a leading position in terms of requirements for effective maritime safety and is well prepared for oil spills and other accidents that cause pollution. This is a development that we can be pleased about, even if it has taken place against a tragic backdrop, namely the great disasters of the losses of the
and the
. The third maritime safety package follows up on the legislation passed in the wake of these two disasters.
I would particularly like to highlight the two directives for which I was the rapporteur for my group, namely the directive on port State control and the directive on the investigation of marine accidents. I would like to thank Mrs Vlasto for her excellent and hard work on the directive on port State control. She backs up the principles proposed by the Commission – that is to say that all ships should be monitored, that the bad ships should be monitored even more and, indeed, that we do not want the very worst ships in European waters at all. She also states that port State control should maintain a suitable standard so that there is more uniform monitoring in all EU ports, and she clarifies the role of the pilots in terms of reporting bad ships.
Mrs Vlasto has reworked the Commission’s proposal with the result that what we have is a much clearer division of ships into good ones and bad ones. This, too, is something that she should be highly praised for, as she should for her amenable and compromise-based way of going about the work on this report. The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe has thus not tabled any amendments to the report from the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I would also like to thank Mr Kohlíček for his constructive cooperation on the directive on the investigation of accidents. Incident investigations and the communication of their results are, of course, vital in ensuring that accidents are not repeated. We have to learn from the accidents that do take place, and as many people as possible must learn from the experience of others. I have attached importance to ensuring, in keeping with what has been learned in aviation, that there are incentives for all parties involved to provide as open and honest an account of the course of an accident as possible. A witness statement to the investigative inquiry must not be used in direct connection with any charge made, as, of course, in such cases, the accused must be granted proper rights during questioning. It is difficult to balance these interests, and I thank Mr Kohlíček for the positive result achieved. The ALDE Group proposes that fishing vessels of below 24 metres in length also be covered by investigations of the nature proposed, because there is a large number of accidents involving such vessels. However, I can accept the limit being set at fishing vessels below 15 metres if this will further the proposal. I am thus hopeful of the support of my fellow Members."@en1
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