Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-20-Speech-2-516"
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"en.20080520.36.2-516"2
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On various shores in South Asia enormous seagoing ships for scrapping are dismantled under conditions that are environmentally damaging and humanly degrading. Social standards do not apply here. In Bangladesh alone, 200 lives have been lost over the past few years as a result of work on the dismantling of ships.
Many children are used to dismantle the ships because it is easy for them to get into small spaces. They are expected to remove toxic substances without any protection for themselves. The substances then end up in the environment, with disastrous consequences for the fishing and tourism industries. Regrettably, many ships from Europe also end up on the shores of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for example, in this way. The high prices of steel, low wages, poor safety regulations and absence of environmental measures are evidently financially attractive.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety clearly states that these practices are ethically unacceptable and that the humanly degrading and environmentally destructive conditions involved in the dismantling of ships must not be permitted to continue. The efforts of an individual Member State or of the European Union alone will not be sufficient to tackle this. Whatever we may do in the years ahead, a global solution to the problem of ship dismantling is still urgently needed. Unfortunately, it has to be said that not much has so far been achieved at global level.
This, indeed, is precisely the reason why the European Commission has published a green paper. The main objective that we wish to achieve is the protection of the environment and public health without simply displacing the problems to other countries. In view of the fact that many seagoing ships currently sailing under the European flag will need to be dismantled in the coming years, we can no longer wait to take action. The Committee on the Environment specifically proposes the following. In order to prevent evasion of the provisions of the Waste Shipments Regulation, guidelines must be introduced that make it possible to distinguish between when a ship is truly a ship and when it is waste. The implementation and enforcement of the Waste Shipments Regulation must be improved through tighter controls and monitoring by port authorities in the Member States, on the understanding that port states must have the power to declare a ship to be at the end of its life.
A list must be compiled of seagoing ships that are likely to be scrapped within a few years. A competitive and clean ship dismantling industry must be developed within the European Union, for example at shipyards that are currently disused. In the framework of development aid, know-how and technology must be transferred to dismantling sites in South Asia to help them comply with safety and environmental standards. Incidentally, the dismantling of seagoing ships in Bangladesh is an extremely lucrative business, in which a sufficient amount of money can be earned in order to swiftly implement acceptable working conditions for dismantling work.
I should like to emphasise that it remains essential that we continue to work on two levels. First of all, we must shoulder responsibility for our own European fleet and work towards establishing a global agreement. At this moment in time, we cannot concentrate on one of these two issues alone. The response I have often received from the shipping industry is that this Green Paper would prevent or delay the development of an IMO convention. I do not agree with this. Rather, I believe that we, the European Union, are actually anticipating this IMO agreement and, in due course, will be better prepared to implement it. Moreover, I am firmly of the opinion that the European Union would like to move away from the serious conditions that exist in South Asia as quickly as possible.
I am pleased that there is a high level of agreement on this issue in the Committee on the Environment and both of the committees who were asked for an opinion. That is in any case a good start. I assume that the plenary sitting can support this course of action. It also appears that the Member States are now able to take action. Last Thursday, the
left the Netherlands for Turkey after the authorities had had the ship cleaned, as a result of which all of the hazardous waste was removed. This is possible by virtue of the Waste Shipments Regulation. Previously, an export licence was refused because these conditions were not fulfilled. On that same Thursday, I received a visit from a delegation of the NGO that is committed to the responsible dismantling of ships is South-East Asia. It must be made clear that these people have been battling for a responsible ship dismantling industry in their country for many years, and we must not leave these people out in the cold.
A lawyer from Bangladesh, people from India: they have been dedicating themselves to this cause for years, and I feel that we must support them in this and must adopt this resolution. I hope to hear what Commissioner Dimas intends to do in the near future with regard to establishing a responsible ship dismantling industry in these countries and to making the resources available to achieve this."@en1
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