Mr President, Commissioner, it is now a year and a half since the tragic accident of the Erika, which caused a real environmental disaster on the French coast near the Straits of Dover. During this time the European Parliament has been working on a proposal made to us by the Commission, called the Erika I package, containing two or three important reports. One of them has been approved; the second, by Mr Watts, has been commented on by him; and the third deals with classification societies, the organisations that specialise in carrying out vessel safety inspections. These are of particular importance to us because, if we do not manage to properly ensure that ships sailing under the flags of European Union Member States – or better still all ships – do so in suitably safe conditions, we are going to have to put up with a lot more accidents like that of the Erika. Sadly, as I said at the beginning, it is a year and a half since that accident in December 1999 and we are still here debating the Commission proposal at its second reading. I think we will have to go on debating it in Parliament. I do not believe that we in the European institutions are responding adequately to citizens’ demands. I believe they want faster, more effective responses in areas that do not just affect people but, as in this case, also affect the environment, animals and plants. On 30 November 2000, the European Parliament approved eighteen amendments to the Commission proposal at first reading, and in its amended proposal of 12 December 2000 the Commission only partially accepted Parliament’s amendments. On the basis of the political agreement reached in December 2000, the Council approved its common position on 28 February 2001, in which it accepted fourteen of the amendments proposed by Parliament. When the matter was considered anew in the Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, certain questions were again raised. I shall mention in particular, in increasing order of importance, first that recognised organisations should not be authorised or engaged if they or their staff have certain links with ship owners or operators. The Committee has also accepted that it should be general practice for recognised organisations to consult with each other periodically to maintain their quality standards and also that these classification societies should agree to provide the Commission with periodical reports and be willing to cooperate with Port State control administrations. There was an amendment, which I myself withdrew at the Commission and Council’s demand, concerning the cases where a classification society did not have its headquarters or main office in the European Community. I believe this matter is also important, because we are going to monitor classification societies that are based in our countries but not those possibly recognised ones that have their headquarters outside our countries. But the most important thing – and this is where the greatest disagreement lies – is the financial liability of classification societies when they are negligent in some way in their vessel inspection duties. In view of the Commission’s proposal that there should be a ceiling to this financial liability of classification societies, the European Parliament has attempted to find a compromise with the Council’s position by providing an option, so that instead of a fixed limit there can be a range within which each Member State can choose its own most fitting or most appropriate ceiling. The Council, however, rejects this position and does not want to talk about ceilings. I think we need to go into this further in order to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.

Political group: Verts-ALE