Mr President, maritime safety and the prevention of pollution from ships are, unfortunately, highly topical issues. A series of accidents has monopolised our attention recently, many lives have been lost and the environmental impact has been disastrous. The European Union currently has numerous directives and regulations on related matters at its disposal. At the same time, however, the European Union has to monitor and react to legislation introduced by international organisations and, more to the point, it has to do so instantly, so that the Member States do not appear to be shirking their international obligations. Consequently, the European Union needs rationally organised and centralised powers for maritime safety policy. That is why the European Commission has submitted this communication, which contains two proposals: one for a regulation and one for a directive. The purpose of the proposal for a regulation is to replace all the existing committees dealing with safety at sea and the prevention of pollution from ships with a single Committee on Safe Seas. All other existing committees dealing with related matters will be disbanded. The purpose of this committee is to facilitate the implementation of amendments to the relevant international conventions by the Member States. It is also important to note that the new Committee on Safe Seas will operate in accordance with the provisions of the regulatory procedure in Council Decision 1999/468. As you all know, this procedure makes provision for and safeguards the powers of both the European Parliament and the Member States. At the same time, however, the European Commission has opted for a procedure which ensures that it has the right to decide whether an international amendment to the regulations raises or lowers maritime safety standards. In summary, the procedure which it has opted for in order to achieve this basic objective is as follows: the Member States implement the most recent provisions of international conventions, except for those expressly referred to and incorporated in a Community act, which are dealt with directly by the European Commission, which either refers them for exclusion to the Committee on Safe Seas or does not refer them, in which case they apply automatically. In other words, they are only referred to the Committee on Safe Seas if the Commission considers that incorporating an amendment to an international convention into a Community act would lower maritime safety standards in the European Union. This is the substance of Article 4, the basic article of the proposal for a regulation. Finally, the purpose of the proposal for a directive is to amend existing directives in order to incorporate the Committee on Safe Seas. This obviously needs to be done. The European Commission has presented the right proposal in an attempt at rational organisation and enhanced supervision of both Community and international law on maritime safety and the prevention of pollution. The small number of amendments aim to clarify the text and hence to safeguard Parliament's rights to take part in the regulatory procedure. Finally, I should like to thank the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for their highly constructive comments and unanimous support for my draft report.

Political group: GUE-NGL