Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-05-20-Speech-1-108-000"
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"en.20130520.17.1-108-000"2
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"Mr President, first may I congratulate Mr Belet on his skilful leadership of this dossier. This has been a good outcome.
We have ended up with a workable directive that will ensure that all Member States with offshore operations apply high environmental and safety standards. But, sensibly, those Member States that already have robust regimes in place will not have to rewrite their rules, as would have been the case with the regulation originally proposed by the Commission.
On the Arctic, I am a bit disappointed at not getting stronger protection included in this directive. We are told that the EU does not have a mandate to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, as currently no Member State has Arctic waters. That makes it all the more important that other international forums, such as the Arctic Council, work to put in place special protection for this highly sensitive region.
I am pleased that MEPs managed to introduce a requirement for national authorities to assess oil spill response effectiveness, where 100% effectiveness means that a response can be assured at any time, no matter how difficult the weather or the logistics. That oil spill response effectiveness rating will inform the decision on whether to authorise an operation or not.
The directive also introduces strong financial liability provisions. Before operators can start, they will have to prove that they have sufficient financial capacity in case of an accident.
Finally, I am pleased that some wording from MEPs on operations outside EU waters survives in the final text. Article 18 requires EU companies with offshore operations to apply the same corporate major accident prevention policy, whether in the EU or outside. This is a real step forward because it stops companies applying double standards on environmental protection. Companies will also have to be much more transparent and report on any accidents that happen in their operations, even outside the EU.
More could be done of course, but I believe that this is a final text which significantly strengthens environmental protection in an intelligent way that builds on existing good practice."@en1
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