Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to wish Mr Pex, and also the other rapporteurs, luck with their work. We have a saying in Dutch to the effect that many small ones make a big one, by which token many small incidents of pollution are, in time, as important as a major disaster. I might add that we laid down the 'polluter pays' principle a long time ago, and I think that now is the time for us to also say that the 'polluter is penalised', which I think would be very justified. I agree with the text adopted by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, in that it should be clearly stated that it is the illegal, deliberate discharges that are targeted, and not so much those resulting from accidents involving damage, for an accident is, after all, different from a deliberate discharge. I think that we should draw this distinction. Mr Piecyk pointed out a moment ago that there are already quite a few directives, such as the directive on port reception facilities, which my country has still not yet transposed. I see this as a disgrace and as a situation that we should rectify without delay. A year has now passed. In addition, we must get round to assessing its use, how ships themselves react to it and whether we should not make any changes anywhere to see whether – and if so, how – the directive works. I should also like to refer to the monitoring directive and the use of the black box. We will have to see how we can apply the use of the black box to find out who pollutes, where pollution occurs, and, if necessary, how much pollution is involved. I think that this should also be taken into consideration, because this is a directive that can also be of importance in this connection. I am delighted that discharges on the high seas have been included in the text and that there are no geographical restrictions but that the sea is considered a common legacy which belongs to everyone and where pollution takes place. Everything hinges, of course, on inspections and on the way in which we catch the polluters in the act. I think that a European coastguard can be of some benefit here, or at least, before we reach that stage, improved mutual cooperation by national coastguards, inspections of ships' accounts and that sort of thing. If we can use a satellite to read the number plate of a suspect’s car in a given country, what stops us from using this kind of technology to trace discharge offences in time? When, for example, the Tricolor was salvaged, other ships took advantage of this accident to discharge their oil, for it was established that the oil that washed up did not originate from the Tricolor, but from other ships. We must, in any case, ensure that we draw a distinction between an accident and deliberate pollution. In shipping circles, there is disquiet about the treatment of shipping crew in some cases. In my view, what is happening with the captain of the Prestige is rather nasty, and I hope that we will be able to talk to him again shortly. I have read that a shipping disaster has now struck in Karaj and that the crew are being held criminally liable. We must be careful about this. You are right to say that we worked hard and managed to do a great deal in the previous session. It was frustrating on occasions. Before the Erica package was complete, we were hit by the Prestige, and that is very frustrating. However, Commissioner, I think that Parliament and the Commission, despite opposition from the Council, have managed to obtain a few positive results, and I hope that we can do the same in the next session. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR