WRITTEN QUESTION E-3585/02

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

(13 December 2002)

Subject: Location of the European Maritime Safety Agency

A large part of the intercontinental maritime traffic to and from Europe passes near the Galician coast. The Prestige tanker disaster has tragically confirmed that Galicia is, therefore, the area of the world with the highest relative incidence of accidents of this type. Will the Council now propose locating the European Maritime Safety Agency in a Galician city? If not, on what grounds? Has any proposal been submitted by the government of the Spanish state, and has it proposed locating the agency in Galicia?

Reply

(8 May 2003)

The Presidency of the Council made a statement to the European Parliament in December 2002 regarding action to be taken to reduce the effects of the Prestige disaster. The statement recalled that, at its meeting on 7, 8 and 9 December 2000 in Nice, the European Council urged an early application by the Member States of the provisions agreed by the 15 which aimed to improve the European system for reporting and supplying information on maritime traffic, to establish a European Maritime Safety Agency and to remedy the inadequacies of the current international system for liability and compensation, where they do not require an international framework.

The Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the establishment of a European Agency for Maritime Safety entered into force on 25 August 2002, although it does not include any provision for the definitive choice of headquarters.

Despite this situation, as laid out in the Regulation the obligation remains to take all necessary measures for the Agency to be operational within the twelve months following its entry into force. It is planned that the Agency will be temporarily based in the European Commission buildings in Brussels.

Since committing itself at the Göteborg meeting (15/16 June 2001) to continuing its efforts to come to a decision on the location of several future organisations, on the understanding that the decision taken in Edinburgh in 1992 remains in effect, the European Council has welcomed the establishment of this Agency.

The inaugural meeting of the Administrative Board of the Agency took place on 4 December 2002. The Board decided on the Agency's action plan and agreed that the Executive Director would be appointed in January 2003. On the occasion if its meeting on 6 December 2002, the Council noted these developments with satisfaction and looked forward to the rapid adoption of a working programme which would enable the Agency to be operational as soon as possible and establish the principles to serve as a basis for action at Community level and in a wider international context. This should include the promotion of uniformity and quality of port control inspection in all ports of the Member States and, for the Commission, the establishment and the monitoring of the procedures for the authorisation and control of classification societies.

The Council has noted the Parliament's intention as regards the 2003 budget to put 50 % of the financial resources for the European Maritime Safety Agency in reserve pending a final decision on its permanent location. If the position of the European Parliament is maintained, it will make it more difficult for those involved to make the agency fully operational as soon as possible.

The Council has noted the Commission's decision to provisionally house the Agency on its own premises, as mentioned in its communication to the Council and the European Parliament on improving safety at sea in response to the Prestige accident(1). The Council also welcomes the information given by the Commission in that communication that the Commission has done everything possible to make the Agency operational six months ahead of schedule.

(1) COM(2002) 681 final.