WRITTEN QUESTION E-1770/03

by Dominique Vlasto (PPE-DE) to the Council

(28 May 2003)

Subject: Compensation from the IOPC Fund for the damage caused by the Prestige disaster

The Prestige sank on 13 November 2002. On 9 May the IOPC Fund announced that the victims of the Prestige oil slick would initially receive 15 % of the total estimated damages, which amount to almost EUR 1 billion.

The author of this question shares the indignation of the victims, who, six months after the disaster, are being offered derisory compensation for the damage and work it caused. In the ERIKA II legislative package the Commission proposed setting up a Community compensation fund, the COPE Fund. This text was adopted by Parliament at first reading in June 2001 and appears to have been held up in the Council ever since.

1. Can the Council say why the proposal has been held up?

2. Tax-payers in the Member States are going to have to fund the remaining compensation for the damage caused by the Prestige wreck. The COPE Fund would have been a way of remedying this scandalous situation. As the COPE Fund has not been established, owing to being held up in the Council, what alternative solutions can the Council propose?

3. Negotiations are currently under way in IOPC on the level of compensation to be paid and the compensation procedure to be used in the case of oil slick damage. Do the European Union Member States have a common approach in these negotiations?

Reply

(13 October 2003)

It is correct that the Commission proposed in December 2000, as part of the ERIKA II package, the creation of an EU fund for the compensation of oil pollution damage in European waters. After a first discussion of this proposal, the Transport Council in December 2000 concluded that there was a need to ensure a proper and, as far as possible, global regime for liability and compensation in cases of pollution damage resulting from contamination by petroleum products and other noxious and hazardous substances transported by ships. This objective should preferably be achieved through an international solution in the context of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) creating a supplementary fund for damages caused by oil pollution in the framework of the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF). As a consequence the examination of the Commission proposal was discontinued pending the outcome of relevant negotiations in IMO. In view of these negotiations a common approach was agreed by Member States and the Commission in June 2001 with a view to reaching agreement on the establishment of such a fund as soon as possible and preferably by 2003 in the IOPCF/IMO framework.

This approach proved to be successful as a new Protocol to the existing oil pollution liability and compensation conventions was adopted by the Diplomatic Conference on 16 May 2003. It establishes an International Oil Pollution Compensation Supplementary Fund, which amounts to a five-fold increase of the compensation currently available to victims under the existing schemes up to a total of 750 million Special Drawing Rights (SDR), corresponding to approximately EUR 910 million, payable for any one incident. The new Fund is open to any member of the existing International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund.

The protocol will be opened for signature as from 31 July 2003 and the new fund will come into existence once the protocol has been ratified by at least eight States whose contribution to the compensation regime corresponds to the receipt by these States of a combined total of at least 450 million tons of oil.

Consequently, the ratification of this Protocol by EU Member States alone in line with Member States undertakings as noted by both the Council (December 2002) and the European Council (March 2003) would already allow for this instrument to take effect.

This new supplementary fund will help to ensure the full and expeditious payment of victims of future oil spills on a global scale.