WRITTEN QUESTION E-3602/02 by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission. New compensation fund for pollution victims.
Date: 2002-12-13
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: European Commission, budgetary reserve (EU), indemnification, information policy, oil pollution, power of initiative

C 192 E/124

Official Journal of the European Union

EN

14.8.2003

Answer given by Mr Monti on behalf of the Commission

(27 January 2003)

The Commission has received a complaint alleging that the City of Alkmaar has granted aid to both a
property development company and the football club AZ Alkmaar. The Commission has requested the
Dutch authorities to provide information on the alleged measures but has not opened any formal
investigation so far.

Given the complex issues raised in these cases, by reason of the aid types involved and the objectives
pursued, it is not possible to take a general position on whether aid within the meaning of Article 87 of
the EC Treaty has been granted nor whether the aid is compatible or not. This has to be assessed on a case
by case basis.

As regards the scope of the investigation, it is necessary to specify that at this very moment no general
inquiry on aid possibly granted in the Netherlands takes place. So, far the Commission has only made a
preliminary assessment of
the complaint. The Commission has no intentions to launch a general
investigation throughout the whole of the Union.

(2003/C 192 E/122)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3602/02

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(13 December 2002)

Subject: New compensation fund for pollution victims

On 14 November 2002, 24 hours after the ‘Prestige’ disaster, the Commission issued a press release
entitled: ‘After the Erika disaster, the European Union is at the forefront of maritime safety’.

This press release, written throughout in the same self-congratulatory register as the title, goes so far as to
declare that ‘the Commission has proposed that a fund for the compensation of oil pollution damage be
set up, with a global ceiling of EUR 1 billion, to compensate victims where the current ceilings of
EUR 200 million are exceeded’.

Can the Commission supply the text of this proposal? Can it provide a legal reference for the ‘current
ceilings’? Is it referring to its right of budgetary initiative in the context of the EU institutions, or to a
proposal made at international level?

Does the Commission not believe that it would be desirable to operate on the basis of more greater
responsibility and informational rigour, and less propaganda?

(2003/C 192 E/123)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3603/02

by Paulo Casaca (PSE) to the Commission

(13 December 2002)

Subject:

‘The EU in the forefront of maritime safety’

to the existence
In its communication COM(2002) 539 (Annex 2, 1.6),
of
‘a contingency (response) plan with a 24-hour alert system’, defined in 2000 in the context
of ‘a Community framework (…) set up to support Member States’ efforts in responding to accidental
and also deliberate marine pollution’.

the Commission refers

Can the Commission explain how it was possible for it, despite the existence of this system, to issue, on
the day after the disaster, a press release significantly entitled ‘The European Union is at the forefront of
maritime safety’, in which, rather than referring to the ‘Prestige’, it continued to speak of the sinking of the
‘Erika’, which happened three years ago?