WRITTEN QUESTION E-1262/03

by Camilo Nogueira Román (Verts/ALE) to the Council

(3 April 2003)

Subject: Amendment of the international compensation and liability mechanism under the International Convention on Civil Liability

In the communication from the Commission to the Council of 5 March 2003(1) on action to deal with the effects of the Prestige disaster, the Commission proposes amending the international compensation and liability mechanism under the International Convention on Civil Liberty in order to make the parties responsible for pollution financially liable.

What progress has been made on this initiative? What measures have the Member States taken in this connection?

(1) COM(2003) 105 final.

Reply

(22 July 2003)

The Council has on several occasions in recent years expressed its support for a possible revision of the Civil Liability Convention (CLC) of 1992, which governs the liability of shipowners for oil pollution damage. Already in its conclusions on maritime safety from December 2000, the Council called on Member States to consider possible amendments to the applicable rules in order to render parties other than shipowners liable, as well as the introduction of unlimited liability of shipowners in the event of severe or deliberate infringement of their safety obligations. Similarly, in the common approach it took in June 2001 with a view to the negotiations in the framework of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF) on the establishment of a supplementary oil pollution compensation fund for the victims of oil pollution, the Council acknowledged the need for a broad examination of the issues of liability and compensation from parties concerned to compensate for oil pollution damage and stated that Member States should support and participate actively in the review of the 1992 regime.

More recently, the European Council of Brussels on 21 March 2003 specifically called for an increase of the liability of maritime transport operators through the amendment of the relevant provisions of the CLC. Finally, the Council (Transport, Telecommunications and Energy) on 27 March 2003 underlined the importance of the polluter-payer-principle in this context.

Against this background, Member States are actively taking part in the review of the present compensation and liability regime, in particular in the Working Group established to this end by the Assembly of the IOPCF in April 2000. No deadline, however, has been set for the adoption of possible modifications.

On the occasion of the meeting of the Working Group which place in February 2003, two Member States and the European Commission submitted a proposal for a modification of the present liability regime, introducing the possibility to breach the threshold for the loss of a shipowner's right to limit his liability in cases where an actual fault on behalf of the owner has been established and to channel liability to others than the shipowner. In a second document, a Member State

recommended a revision of the CLC following a two-pronged approach, consisting in a return to strict channelling involving liability for others than the registered owner and an increase of the owners' financial obligations concerning the financing of the proposed supplementary oil pollution compensation fund. These proposals will now form part of the future debates of the Working Group. Its next meeting is scheduled to take place in October 2003.