Report from the Commission for the Biarritz European Council on the Community's strategy for safety at sea
Date: 2000-09-27
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: accident prevention, environmental protection, maritime safety, maritime surveillance, prevention of pollution

COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

Brussels, 27.9.2000
COM(2000) 603 final

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION

FOR THE BIARRITZ EUROPEAN COUNCIL

on the Community’s strategy for safety at sea

REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION

FOR THE BIARRITZ EUROPEAN COUNCIL

on the Community’s strategy for safety at sea

The Feira European Council of 19-20 June 2000 welcomed the Commission’s intention to
deliver a report on the overall strategy concerning the safety of transport at sea to enable a
decision to be taken before the end of the year.

That request arose following the sinking of the oil tanker Erika off the French coast on
12 December 1999, and the resultant pollution of roughly 400 km of coastline by more than
10 000 m³ of heavy oil.

The European Union has already assembled a sizeable battery of laws relating to safety at sea
and the prevention of marine pollution.

in March 1993,

individual cases until,

Following the Amoco Cadiz disaster in 1978 the Commission has repeatedly drawn the
Council’s attention to the fact that the conventional forum for international action on safety at
sea, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has not been adequately effective in
tackling the causes of disasters at sea. Moreover, action on safety at sea had only been taken
in a number of
the Commission issued a
Communication describing the bare bones of a common maritime safety policy. The overall
strategy suggested by the Commission was rapidly implemented. Over the space of several
years, twelve directives and three regulations were adopted by the Council. In general terms
those instruments are intended to ensure that the rules arising from international conventions
on ship safety, the prevention of pollution by ships, seafarer training and qualification criteria
and on-board working conditions are implemented more stringently, or indeed in advance,
within the Community. After several tragedies had taken place at sea and more particularly
the sinking of the Estonia in 1994, particular attention was paid to the safety of passenger
ships and of ships carrying bulk cargoes. That body of laws is basically intended for merchant
ships, but the safety of recreational craft and fishing vessels is also covered by specific
Community measures.

The sinking of the Erika in December 1999 spurred new developments in the drafting of a
European maritime safety policy that is aimed more particularly at the environmental hazards
caused by oil tankers.

That disaster caused a considerable stir among the public in Europe. Quite clearly the
recurrence of such accidents and their impact on the environment have considerably reduced
public tolerance.

Both the European Parliament, via its Resolution of 20 January 2000, and the General Affairs
Council of 24 January call for a significant tightening of the rules governing safety at sea at
Community level.

The Commission responded to these calls by adopting a “communication on the safety of oil
three months after the accident. That
transport by sea” on 21 March 2000, only about

2

communication describes an overall strategy that includes a certain number of practical short
and medium-term activities to prevent such accidents from ever happening again.

I- Reminder of the proposed short-term measures being examined by the Council and
European Parliament

The three proposed legislative measures adopted by the Commission after the Erika disaster
are currently being discussed within the Council and European Parliament.

It is extremely important that the discussions on those three measures should progress in
parallel in a rapid coordinated manner within the European institutions.

1)

Content of the proposed measures

• A substantial amendment of the existing Directive on the inspection of ships by the Port
State in order to make the checks in ports more stringent since these are at the moment
still inadequate. That proposal basically aims to ban ships that fall below the standards
(and includes drawing up a black list of ships which may no longer enter European-Union
waters) and to step up inspections on board “hazardous” ships, including oil tankers. All of
these changes require more inspection staff in the ports in the various Member States. The
Member States’ administrations must not fail to increase staffing levels in this area.

• An amendment of the existing Directive with regard to classification societies for which
the Member States delegate a major proportion of their inspection powers, especially as
regards the structural quality of ships. Its aim is to centralise and harmonise the approval
procedures for those societies, to impose specific penalties (suspension or withdrawal of
approval) on societies failing to perform their duties and, in general terms to supervise
activities of those societies more closely.

• The third proposal aims at a general ban on single-hull oil tankers in line with a timetable
similar to that set by the United States, which will enable double-hull oil tankers, which are
less likely to pollute in an accident, to be introduced more quickly. That timetable requires
the use of double hulls for most categories of oil tanker in 2010.

Finally, the Commission proposes that, without waiting for those measures to take effect, the
main industrial partners involved in oil transport by sea should reach a voluntary agreement
in order immediately to improve safety in that area.

2)

Progress made on the action package proposed by the Commission

Rapid progress has been noted as regards the proposal for a directive intended to amend the
Community directive on classification societies and it may now be taken that there is very
broad agreement on its wording within the Council.

The general aims of the proposal on port state control have been well received within the
Council, which also fosters hopes for an agreement on its wording before the end of the year.
However, the provisions covering mandatory, more stringent inspections of “hazardous” ships
such as oil tankers that are more than fifteen years old, are likely to be watered down since the
Member States are reluctant to employ the staff needed in order to meet those additional
commitments. The Commission is able to understand the desire for some flexibility in dealing
with any exceptional situations which may occur in Community ports, but could not accept
any text allowing ships such as the Erika to evade mandatory inspection. Thus, if the more

3

stringent
inspections only became mandatory (as certain Member States would prefer),
beyond an excessively high target coefficient,1 ships identical to the Erika would not be
inspected.

With regard to the proposed regulation on double-hull oil tankers a joint approach must be
taken within the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in order to attempt to have forms
of action similar to those preferred by the European Union adopted quickly. It would now
seem that there is a broad enough consensus in favour of amending the international rules in
force. However, it is still necessary to continue the work on the proposed regulation in order
to be able to have this instrument adopted by the Council in December, together with the
other forms of action proposed, that being the date on which it will be possible to judge the
success or otherwise of the action taken within the IMO.

The Community institutions must work in concert in order to enable the Nice European
Council to note an agreement on those three instruments by the end of the year.

So far the Commission has not received any clear signs from the oil companies of any will
whatsoever to conclude any voluntary agreement on improving transparency and chartering
practices relating to sea-going oil
the shipowners
specialising in the carriage of oil products by sea, and the classification societies, have
expressed an interest in taking part in such a debate.

tankers, whereas the other parties,

II - A second string of measures to improve safety at sea

Beyond the proposed short-term action set out in the annexes to the Communication, the
Commission has announced further action, during the months ahead, to provide long-term
protection of European waters against the risk of accidents and pollution of the seas.

1)

Action intended to improve the safety of traffic at sea and prevent pollution by ships

The safety of traffic at sea in European waters is a crucial factor: 90% of the trade between
the European Union and non-member countries is seaborne. The risk of accident resulting
from the concentration of traffic along the main European seaways is particularly high in
certain narrows such as the English Channel or straits of Gibraltar. Moreover,
the
environmental impact of accidents at sea which is likely to occur even in areas outside those
where traffic is highly concentrated (as happened when the Erika sank) may be disastrous for
the economies and environments of the Member States concerned.

As an underlying principle of navigation at sea, freedom of the seas has enabled a worldwide
transport-services market to develop that is characterised by free competition in an area where
there is little regulation. That freedom has been a great help in expanding world trade and
Europe’s economy. However the principle of freedom of the seas must not serve as a smoke
screen in order to deny those states, through whose waters vessels carrying seriously polluting
cargoes sail, the right to identify and more closely to monitor those vessels and to take
on-board action if their own shorelines are seriously threatened. The principle of freedom of
the seas may be fully compatible with making ship inspections more stringent, more

1 Under the “targeting coefficient”, a number of points are allotted to ships in the light of various criteria, such as
age, flag, previous detentions, etc. Ships receiving the greatest number of points must be inspected as a matter or
urgency. That tool enables hazardous vessels to be targeted and reduces the likelihood of discrepancies in port
practices.

4

especially since the advances in communications technologies nowadays enable precise
information on traffic to be obtained while reducing the cumbersome nature of the
identification procedures to a minimum.

Compared with other areas, such as passenger-ship safety, which are governed by many
detailed Community regulations, the prevention of accidents due to traffic at sea is at the
moment only based on one Community Directive introducing mandatory declarations by
operators and captains of ships carrying dangerous or polluting cargoes and bound for a
European port. The basic aim of that Directive is to enable operating authorities in the
Member States to acquire detailed information on the cargo on board a ship in order to deal
more quickly and effectively with the consequences of an accident at sea.

A new body of legislation, with more ambitious aims, is being prepared. It will provide for
the setting-up of a European system of information on sea traffic on the basis of the following
main guiding principles:

– introducing a wider obligation to declare before entry into European waters,

– improving the procedures regarding the transmission and use of data concerning dangerous
cargoes, more particularly by making systematic use of electronic data interchange (EDI),

– requiring vessels sailing in Community waters to carry on board automatic identification
systems (or transponders) in accordance with the timescale laid down by the IMO in order
to ease their identification and monitoring by the relevant coastal authorities,

– boosting the development of common databases and the networking of centres responsible
for managing the information received under the Directive in order to provide a more
complete picture of the traffic, especially transit traffic, in European waters,

– ensuring closer monitoring of the vessels presenting a particularly serious threat to safety

at sea and the environment,

– enhancing the powers of intervention of the Member States, as coastal States, if there is an

accident hazard or threats of pollution off their coasts.

2)

Improving the liability and damage-compensation systems currently in force

The carriage of large quantities of oil by sea is an intrinsically dangerous activity which poses
major threats to the marine environment. For that reason, since the seventies, the international
community has used the framework provided by the IMO to draw up international
conventions laying down detailed rules governing liability and damage compensation in the
event of pollution by tanker ships. However, it should be remembered that the United States
have not ratified those international conventions and have set up their own system of liability
for pollution damage.

The main characteristics of the system introduced by the international conventions are:

– strict liability vis-à-vis ship owners; it is, however, limited per event to an amount linked to
the registered tonnage of an owner's vessel; a system of mandatory liability insurance is
also introduced,

5

– no further request for pollution damage reparations may be made against the owner,
charterer or any other party involved unless it can be demonstrated that the damage is
deliberate or due to gross negligence,

– the oil industry is collectively paying into a guarantee fund, the IOPCF, that is calculated
on the basis of oil imports; the IOPCF is activated when the compensation offered under
the above sections is inadequate. However, the level of compensation is also capped at
roughly $200 million.

The system introduced by those conventions has demonstrated a certain effectiveness and
several requests for redress have been regulated in a suitable manner via that system.

However, thirty years after it was introduced, there is now a perceived need for a more
thorough-going revision of the system currently in operation. The Erika disaster highlighted
several shortcomings which need to be corrected.

More particularly, the following have been identified:

– the maximum level of compensation is clearly not enough. The extent of the damage
caused by the Erika disaster will probably exceed that upper limit by a considerable
In its
amount. On this assumption the victims will only receive partial
Communication on the safe transport of oil by sea the Commission had stated that it would
be necessary to raise the upper compensation limit
to $1 000 million following the
American example, in order to guarantee sufficient cover for any future oil slicks affecting
the European Union’s coastline;

redress.

– the system in force does not contain any incentives for decision-makers in the shipping
industry to supply and use quality ships for this type of intrinsically dangerous transport
operation;

– the damage-compensation procedures are complex, slow and obscure.

to receive full and complete compensation.

The immediate priority is to deal with the first of those shortcomings. It is not acceptable for
members of the European public who have suffered the dramatic consequences of major
Increasing the
accidental pollution not
compensation ceilings is already being discussed at international level, but it now emerges
that
this increase - if approved - might still be woefully inadequate. The Commission
therefore intends to propose that a European fund to compensate for damage caused by
pollution be set up which would provide top-up compensation for victims where the ceilings
set by the Conventions are exceeded. That top-up fund would operate in accordance with
parallel procedures that supplement those of the IOPCF.

it

is necessary to proceed without
As regards the other shortcomings identified above,
awaiting any amendment of the Convention governing shipowner liability. The Commission
will bring the Member State administrations and the bodies representing the oil shipping
industry together in order to adopt a coordinated position with a view to amending the
international conventions. The Commission has already announced its intention to put
forward proposals in order to be able to awaken the liability of all of the other operators
involved in transport by sea, including charterers. If an amendment of this type is not
accepted by the international bodies, the Commission will put forward a system of overall
liability at Community level. Such a system could include unlimited liability in the event of
negligent behaviour.

6

Against this backdrop it is important to stress, in line with the White Paper on environmental
that a revised system of damage compensation linked to
liability of 9 February 2000,
pollution of the seas by oil products will also have to address the matter of damage to wildlife
and biodiversity.

3)

Towards a European structure for maritime safety

Within just a few years a wide-ranging body of laws has been enacted. The Member States
must implement the rules effectively and uniformly, more particularly by consolidating the
procedures and practices applying to inspection in ports and the fitness checking of ships.

In order to help the Commission to ensure that the efficient, harmonious implementation of
those rules is monitored and checked within the European Union, the Commission, as put to
the European Parliament, is contemplating the setting-up of a specific structure which might
take the form of a “European Agency for Maritime Safety”.

This structure would support the Commission's and the Member States' actions in applying
and monitoring Community law and in assessing the effectiveness of the tools provided. It
would also help in preparing the technical adjustments to Community law. It should be able to
perform the tasks of acquiring and analysing factual and statistical information and perform
individual audits or expert assessments as part of implementing Community law.

More specifically, the body could perform the following main tasks:

– providing technical assistance in preparing the proposed amendments to the Community

legal texts, more particularly in the light of changes in the international regulations,

– inspecting, in situ, the conditions under which the Port State control is carried out by the

Member States,

– gathering data and operating databases on safety at sea (and in particular developing

EQUASIS),

– tasks involving the monitoring of shipping and the management of information relating to

sea traffic,

– assessing and auditing the classification societies,

– being involved in or coordinating activities relating to investigations following an accident

at sea,

– providing assistance to the States applying for accession in order to assess how far their

maritime administrations meet their obligations as flag and Port States.

***********

As announced in the Commission Communication of 21 March, the proposals concerning the
safety of traffic at sea and the European structure will be finalised by the end of the year and
will be followed immediately by a proposal on liability. All of these forms of action together,
including the first package of short-term measures, make up a coherent whole which should
significantly improve maritime safety in the waters and ports of the European Union. The
Council and the European Parliament are requested to conduct their examination with the
greatest urgency in order that these proposals may quickly lead to practical action.

7