Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-24-Speech-2-288"
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Mr President, I should like to thank all the Members of this Parliament, and also to congratulate and thank Mrs Roth, as this was a very rich debate. I trust you will forgive me if I do not respond to all the speakers, but we have taken a lot of notes and I am grateful to all of you.
In spite of everything, there is still one thing that I cannot accept. The Commission proposed that fishing vessels that are more than 15 metres long should be fitted with automatic identification systems – AISs – that reduce the risks of collision. By limiting this requirement to fishing vessels more than 24 metres long, we are, I fear, emptying this provision of most of its power, and I would like to stress this to Parliament, because we think that safeguarding human life is absolutely vital. There are currently accidents involving vessels less than 24 metres long, and it would be a shame not to make use of this opportunity.
So, Mr Sterckx, thank you once again. That is what I have to say on the proposal for which you were the rapporteur.
I now come to the proposal dealt with by Mr Kohlíček, on the investigation of accidents. Here too, I can tell that we have Parliament's full support, and I am prepared to accept a number of amendments that clarify or improve the text. For example, Amendment 12 setting a fixed deadline for the start of the investigation. With regard to the scope, the effect of Amendment 25, which aims to remove any limit for fishing vessels, would be to increase the associated administrative burden considerably, and the Commission cannot accept that. I also have some problems with Amendments 1 and 14, which, whilst putting the emphasis on the resources of the investigative bodies, removes their permanent nature and weakens the provisions relating to their independence, even though this is a vital guarantee for the quality of the investigations. In contrast, I agree fully with Amendment 26.
Amendments 5, 9, 15 and 16 also demonstrate the desire to ensure an even clearer separation between technical investigations and legal investigations, particularly criminal ones. Mrs Wortmann-Kool emphasised this point. The Commission recognises the need to minimise interference between the two types of procedure, but in this regard we need to take account of the varying legal traditions of the Member States. I would therefore propose to Parliament that we maintain a balance by affirming the principle that the two types of investigation must be conducted independently of one another, whilst still retaining, where appropriate, the judge's prerogatives.
Finally, the issue arises of how to integrate the IMO's guidelines on the fair treatment of seafarers, which were adopted in 2006, into the proposal for a directive – I am referring here to Amendment 22. The Commission is, of course, sensitive to this issue, but these guidelines go far beyond the scope of the investigations, and we need to be careful with any references introduced into the text.
I will now turn to the proposal on compensation for accident victims. I am grateful to Mr Costa for his wholehearted support for the Commission's proposal. I am delighted that the Committee on Transport and Tourism followed the rapporteur's approach, and I am now counting on the support of the whole of Parliament.
I am in favour of Amendment 8: its addition of a new regulation excluding competing conventions that could reduce the compensation paid to victims and result in disparate systems coexisting within the EU is very valuable.
I also support Amendments 13, 14 and 15, which provide for the regulation to enter into force in stages in order to take account of the adaptation difficulties faced by the various sectors, such as regular ferry lines and inland waterway transport. This is a pragmatic and absolutely reasonable solution.
The aim of Amendments 16 and 27 is to exclude inland waterway navigation from the scope of the regulation completely. Were we to do this, the law would remain a patchwork of national regulations, most of which are unsuitable and offer no real protection to victims of a sinking. I will also respond on this matter, because I have noticed that Parliament is very hesitant about extending the scope to cover inland waterway transport.
Accidents on inland waterways are, fortunately, rare, but they do happen: the Marchioness disaster on the Thames in 1989 caused 50 deaths, and the sinking of the Oca on Lake Banyoles in Spain in 1999 resulted in 20 deaths, most of them elderly people. Of course, some such incidents could be covered by the CLNI, the Convention on the limitation of liability in inland navigation, but do not forget that this convention currently only covers the Rhine and the Moselle, and does not relate to the other lakes and rivers in Europe. I would also emphasise, ladies and gentlemen, the liability limits, which are very low and have very limited prospects of increase. There is no strict liability scheme in the event of accidents, no compulsory insurance and no direct action from the insurers, and that means that I can say, having looked into this very carefully, that inland waterways must remain within the scope of this new system of compensation for accident victims.
I will start, Mr President, with port State control, and I would like to thank Mrs Vlasto for her work. She has set out to bring you round to the principle of a Community objective of an inspection scheme for all vessels, with the frequency depending on the risks posed. I am delighted at the level of support for other elements of the Commission's proposal, in particular for inspection of vessels at anchorages and for strengthening the banning rules. I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify that port State control allows us to verify that certain ILO conventions are being implemented, notably those relating to working time, and I am very pleased that Mrs Roth mentioned this point.
In my view, it is also hard to justify Amendment 9, which aims to limit advance payment to cases in which the carrier has strict liability, in other words to navigation incidents such as sinkings and not to hotel-type incidents such as a passenger slipping on deck. Those are my comments on Mr Costa's report on compensation for accident victims.
I apologise, Mr President, for going on so long, but I have to be precise, because Parliament's work has been consistent. It is therefore logical that the Commission should put forward its point of view clearly. That is a precondition for good dialogue between Parliament and the Commission, under the watchful eye of the Presidency, to whom I am grateful for the close attention they have paid since the beginning of the debate.
I will now turn to Mr de Grandes Pascual's report on the proposal regarding classification societies. It has to be said, Mr de Grandes Pascual, that the majority of the amendments make the text clearer and provide effective additions to it, whether with regard to ultimately assessing the operation of the mutual recognition system for classification certificates or with regard to drawing possible conclusions from this from the legislative point of view – I am referring here to Amendment 53.
As I have said, one essential aspect of the proposal relates to the quality management system for classification societies authorised to operate within the Community. Parliament wants the body that will certify this system to be set up by the Member States and the recognised organisations: Amendments 58 and 74. Whilst the Commission can accept these amendments in principle, it feels that the involvement of the Member States will require the use of a comitology procedure, as this provides a clear and precise legal path. In addition, Amendment 73 would weaken the Commission's ability to assess and correct the operation of this body, and we must therefore reject it.
In more general terms, concerning comitology, and in response to Amendments 11 and 36, I can tell you that the Commission will, if necessary, work to bring its proposals into line to take account of the new regulatory procedure with scrutiny.
Finally, I must raise our serious doubts regarding certain amendments on the civil liability system for recognised organisations, namely Amendments 28, 30 and 31. In the report that the Commission presented to you and to the Council, we showed that it would be premature to start reforming this system at this stage. We must be cautious, and avoid diving headlong into reforms that would risk making victims even more vulnerable.
I am thinking in particular of the trap of automatically extending to recognised organisations the protections and immunities enjoyed by the flag State on whose behalf they work. To be honest, I think there needs to be a difference between the flag State and the recognised classification organisation and that if, in one case, immunity could be compromised, in the other it is highly questionable. We would be disregarding the fact that these organisations also work for the shipbuilders, in a strictly private relationship, and that this kind of immunity from legal process, this kind of protection, would be absolutely exorbitant.
That, in essence, is what I have to say on the amendments as a whole. Mr President, a complete list of the amendments and of the Commission position will be passed on to you and to the secretariat of Parliament.
I would like to conclude by once again thanking Parliament. As one of you said, Europe needs to be a world leader in safety standards. This is an excellent expression. It was Mr Evans who used it, and I am grateful to him. It was also pointed out just now that this was a coherent package and that the European maritime space was particularly fragile, with a number of straits, to the Baltic and Black Seas, and that this necessitates a sufficiently strong legal framework.
It is not a question, once again, of criminalisation at any cost, but of prevention: that is what is important to us. I am also convinced that the European arsenal, or rather the arsenals of our Member States, will come out on top in global competition thanks to the improvement in quality. I am absolutely convinced of that: there is no inherent contradiction between the quest for higher quality in the national arsenals of Europe and their competitiveness in the global market.
Returning again to port State control, you have proposed that, from now on, we take account of the technical work carried out within the framework of the Paris memorandum of understanding in specifying how the new system should be implemented. The Commission agrees wholeheartedly with Parliament on this point and can accept fully, or at least in principle, a large majority of the amendments, which will improve the clarity of the text that we proposed.
That, Mr President, is all I have to say. I am grateful to Parliament for the quality of this debate and for the work it has done.
In Amendment 17, however, you propose inserting a definition of 'ports', and why not indeed, but in that case it needs to be linked properly to the definition of anchorages and Article 3(1), on the scope of the directive, needs to specify that inspections at anchorages will target the highest-risk vessels.
The only point on which we disagree with you on this text on port State control relates to Articles 34, 36 and 37, in which you have not provided any room for flexibility with regard to the conducting of inspections, a flexibility which the current directive does include. I understand Parliament's concern to develop a very strict framework for the conducting of inspections, but a certain amount of flexibility is vital if the new inspection system is to work properly. I am therefore pleased that Amendment 115 introduces greater flexibility for inspections at anchorages. In addition, though this is a more technical point, I stand by the opinion that stricter inspections should apply to vessels more than 12 years old, rather than 15 as proposed in Amendment 107. So much, then, for the first text on port State control.
I would now like, while Mr Sterckx is here, to thank him very much for his support and to discuss the proposal for an amendment to the Directive on vessel traffic monitoring, with particular regard to issues relating to places of refuge. I would also like to point out in this regard that, when we talk about an independent authority for places of refuge, we are not talking about a Community body. It is up to the Member States to establish these bodies at national level; for us, the important thing is that they be independent.
In Amendments 31, 32 and 33, you have put forward a slightly different presentation of two vital principles. First, with regard to the principle that ships in distress should be admitted to a place of refuge, it is possible to refuse entry, but it must remain an exceptional case, based on an objective assessment of the situation according to the elements included in the emergency plan drawn up beforehand. Secondly, the decision must be taken by an independent authority, not subject to political or economic pressures. I can accept this presentation, which is an improvement on our initial proposal. In contrast, I am not in favour of Amendments 55 and 56 with regard to the drawing up of marine environmental and human resources index maps, because the Commission has already proposed that a description of the environmental and social factors should be one of the elements making up a 'places of refuge' plan.
The Commission can also accept, in some cases subject to editorial amendments, a number of additions that it regards as very valuable. For example, Amendment 41 on full compensation for economic loss, Amendments 64 and 65 on the vital role of SafeSeaNet, which must be operational 24 hours a day, Amendments 13, 14, 20, 24 and 41 on the establishment of a European centre to handle long-distance messages transmitted by ships for maritime safety and security purposes, and Amendments 62 and 63 on the notification of bunker oil.
You also have my full support for Amendment 66, which aims to provide protection against the risk of abuse in the transmission of navigation data and undoubtedly constitutes an improvement over the previous wording of this amendment. Finally, concerning comitology, and in response to Amendments 58, 59, 60 and 61, I can tell you that the Commission will, if necessary, work to bring its proposals into line to take account of the new regulatory procedure with scrutiny."@en1
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