WRITTEN QUESTION E-1330/03 by Sérgio Marques (PPE-DE) to the Commission. Prestige: Community aid.
Date: 2003-04-08
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: EU aid, EU financial instrument, EU policy, Galicia, degradation of the environment, economic consequence, oil pollution, social impact, tanker

27.3.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 78 E/713

were not caused by the GATS. The Commission will continue to explain that the GATS process leaves
governments free to choose whether their services should be provided by public or by private companies
and free to regulate in pursuance of public policy objectives. The Commission is currently preparing a
Green Paper on Services of General Interest, which will include a section examining possible links between
these services and trade policy.

In this context, the Commission is committed to ensuring a regular and transparent information and
dialogue with representatives of civil society. Consultation takes place within Directorate General Trade’s
civil society dialogue, where consumer organisations participate. The Commission also meets consumer
organisations to discuss these issues on an ad hoc basis, for example in the Commission Consumer
Consultative Committee or in the context of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), where the
Union and the United States’ consumer organisations are represented.

(2004/C 78 E/0761)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-1330/03

by Sérgio Marques (PPE-DE) to the Commission

(8 April 2003)

Subject:

‘Prestige’: Community aid

The sinking of the ‘Prestige’ off the Galician coast in 19 November 2002, caused one of the largest-ever
ecological disasters, with appalling economic and social consequences for a massively fisheries-dependent,
and hence fragile, Objective 1 region.

This disastrous accident, which did not affect Portugal solely and simply because of sea-currents, once
again raised the issue of safety at sea and how to control transport of hydrocarbons. The issue is of
fundamental concern to a country like Portugal, with an immense coastline and extremely vulnerable
islands like Madeira and the Azores.

Following the wreck, the Commission presented a Communication on stepping-up safety at sea, providing
for: earlier application of the measures in the ‘Erika I’ package (measures on port State control of vessels,
closer monitoring of the performance of the classification societies and bringing forward the timetable for
withdrawing single-hull oil tankers from service), and the ‘Erika II’ (measures on earlier establishment of
the European Maritime Safety Agency and compensation for victims of oil
increased
international intervention and the introduction of sanctions, for pollution crime, including penal sanctions.

spillages),

In paragraphs 11 and 12 of its resolution of 19 December 2002, the European Parliament called on the
Commission, ‘as a matter of urgency, to consider using all the necessary financial instruments to tackle the
economic, social and environmental consequences of the wreck of the “Prestige” and assist the economic
sectors affected’, and the immediate adoption of measures ‘to alleviate the damage occasioned to those
affected, through the use of the Solidarity Fund’.

Can the Commission answer the following:

1.

Four months after the ‘Prestige’ tragedy, what financial resources have been made available, and what
measures have been adopted to tackle the economic, social and environmental consequences?

2. Does the Commission possess any estimate of the damage caused by the sinking of the ‘Prestige’?

3. What has the Commission decided with regard to the possible use of the Solidarity Fund in respect of

the ‘Prestige’ disaster?

Answer given by Mr Barnier on behalf of the Commission

(21 May 2003)

The Commission refers the Honourable Member to the response given to question H-0221/03.