Regulation (EC) No 1891/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on multiannual funding for the action of the European Maritime Safety Agency in the field of response to pollution caused by ships and amending Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002   (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2006-12-18
Institutions: Council of the European Union, European Parliament
Subjects: EU financing, European Maritime Safety Agency, budget, maritime safety, pollution control measures, pollution from ships

30.12.2006

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Official Journal of the European Union

L 394/1

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(Acts whose publication is obligatory)

REGULATION (EC) No 1891/2006 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 18 December 2006

on multiannual funding for the action of the European Maritime Safety Agency in the field of
response to pollution caused by ships and amending Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE
EUROPEAN UNION,

(4)

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Commu-
nity, and in particular Article 80(2) thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the Opinion of the European Economic and
Social Committee (1),

Having consulted the Committee of the Regions,

(5)

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251
of the Treaty (2),

Whereas:

(1) Certain bilateral

and regional

concluded
between coastal states, such as the Helsinki and Barcelona
Conventions of 1992 and 1976 respectively, provide for
mutual assistance in the event of a maritime pollution
incident.

agreements

implementing these new tasks of
For the purposes of
preventing and responding to pollution, the Administrative
Board of the Agency adopted on 22 October 2004 an
Action Plan for Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response,
which determines the Agency's oil pollution response
activities and is aimed at optimum use of the financial
resources available to the Agency (hereinafter ‘the Action
Plan’).

The pollution response action of the Agency, as defined in
relates to activities in the fields of
the Action Plan,
information, cooperation and coordination and above all
the provision of operational assistance to the Member
States by supplying, on request, additional anti-pollution
vessels to combat oil pollution and other types of pollution
such as that caused by hazardous and noxious substances.
The Agency is to pay particular attention to those areas
identified as most vulnerable without prejudice to any other
area in need.

(2) Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 (3) established a European
Maritime Safety Agency (hereinafter ‘the Agency’) for the
purpose of ensuring a high, uniform and effective level of
maritime safety and prevention of pollution by ships.

(3) Regulation (EC) No 724/2004, which amended Regula-
tion (EC) No 1406/2002, assigned to the Agency new tasks
in the fields of preventing and responding to pollution
caused by ships,
in
Community waters, particularly those of the oil tankers
‘Erika’ and ‘Prestige’.

in response to recent accidents

(6)

The activities of the Agency in this field should not relieve
coastal states of their responsibility to have appropriate
pollution response mechanisms in place and should comply
with existing cooperation arrangements between Member
States or groups of Member States in this field. In the event
of a maritime pollution incident, the Agency is to assist the
Member State(s) affected, under whose authority clean-up
operations are to be conducted.

(1) OJ C 28, 3.2.2006, p. 16.
(2) Opinion of the European Parliament of 5 September 2006 (not yet
Journal) and Council Decision of

published in the Official
18 December 2006.

(3) OJ L 208, 5.8.2002, p. 1. Regulation as last amended by Regulation

(EC) No 724/2004 (OJ L 129, 29.4.2004, p. 1).

(7)

In accordance with the Action Plan, the Agency is to play
an active role in developing a centralised satellite imagery
service for surveillance, the early detection of pollution and
identification of the ships responsible. This new system will
improve the availability of data and the effectiveness of the
response to pollution caused by ships.

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(8)

(9)

(10)

The additional means to be provided by the Agency to the
Member States should be made available through the
Community mechanism in the field of civil protection
assistance interventions, including accidental marine pollu-
tion,
established by Council Decision 2001/792/EC,
Euratom (1).

In order to ensure thorough implementation of the Action
Plan and strengthen the prevention of and response to
pollution caused by ships by expanding current anti-
pollution activities, the Agency should be provided with a
viable and cost-effective system for financing, in particular,
its operational assistance to the Member States.

It is therefore necessary to provide for appropriate financial
security for the funding of
the tasks entrusted to the
Agency in the field of pollution response and other
associated actions on the basis of a multiannual commit-
ment. The annual amounts of the Community contribution
should be determined in accordance with the procedures in
force.

(11) The amounts to be committed for the funding of pollution
response should cover the period 2007 to 2013, in line
with the new financial framework.

(12) A financial envelope covering the same period should
therefore be provided for the implementation of the Action
Plan.

(13) The amount of that envelope should be regarded as the
minimum needed to carry out the tasks entrusted to the
Agency in the field of responding to pollution caused by
ships.

(14)

In order to optimise the allocation of commitments and
take into account any changes with regard to activities in
response to pollution caused by ships, it is necessary to
ensure continuous monitoring of the particular needs for
action so as to allow for adaptation of the annual financial
commitments.

(15) The Administrative Board of the Agency should thus review
the budgetary commitments, on the basis of a report to be
to include any
produced by the Executive Director,
necessary adjustments
the Agency.
Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 should therefore be
amended accordingly,

to the budget of

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Objective

This Regulation lays down the detailed arrangements for the
financial contribution of the Community to the budget of the
European Maritime Safety Agency for the implementation of the
tasks assigned to it in the field of responding to pollution caused
by ships and other associated actions, pursuant to Article 2 of
Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002.

(1) OJ L 297, 15.11.2001, p. 7.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation the following definitions
shall apply:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

‘the Agency’ means the European Maritime Safety Agency,
established by Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002;

‘regional agreements’ means the bilateral and regional
agreements concluded between coastal states to render
mutual assistance in the event of a maritime pollution
incident;

‘oil’ means petroleum in any form including crude oil, fuel
oil, sludge, oil refuse and refined products as established by
the International Convention on Oil Pollution Prepared-
ness, Response and Cooperation, 1990;

if

than oil which,

‘hazardous and noxious substances’ means any substance
introduced into the marine
other
environment, is likely to create hazards to human health,
to harm living resources and marine life,
to damage
amenities or to interfere with other legitimate uses of the
sea, as established by the Protocol on Preparedness,
Response and Cooperation to Pollution Incidents by
Hazardous and Noxious Substances, 2000.

Article 3

Scope

The financial contribution of the Community referred to in
Article 1 shall be allocated to the Agency with the aim of
financing actions such as the ones mentioned in the Action Plan
and in particular those relating to:

(a)

(b)

(c)

information and the assembling, analysing and disseminat-
ing of best practices, techniques and innovations, such as
instruments for monitoring tank-emptying, in the field of
responding to pollution caused by ships;

cooperation and coordination and the provision to the
Member States and the Commission of
technical and
scientific assistance in the framework of the activities of the
relevant regional agreements;

operational assistance and supporting, on request, with
additional means, such as stand-by anti-pollution ships and
equipment, Member States' pollution response actions in
the event of accidental or deliberate pollution caused by
ships.

Article 4

Community funding

The financial envelope for the implementation of
the tasks
referred to in Article 3 for the period from 1 January 2007 to
31 December 2013 shall be EUR 154 000 000.

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Annual appropriations shall be determined by the budgetary
authority within the limits of the financial framework. In this
connection the necessary funding of operational assistance to the
Member States pursuant to Article 3(c) is to be guaranteed.

Article 7

Amendments to Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002

Article 5

Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 shall be amended as follows:

Monitoring existing capabilities

(a)

The following point shall be added to Article 10(2):

In order to define the requirements for operational assistance,
such as additional anti-pollution vessels, to be provided by the
Agency to the Member States, the Agency shall draw up on a
regular basis a list of the private and state pollution response
mechanisms and response capabilities in the various regions of
the European Union.

Article 6

Protection of Community financial interests

interests of

1. The Commission and the Agency shall ensure that, when
the
actions funded under this Regulation are implemented,
financial
the Community are protected by the
application of preventive measures against fraud, corruption and
any other illegal activities, by means of effective checks and the
recovery of any amounts unduly paid and, where irregularities
are detected, by effective, proportional and dissuasive penalties,
in accordance with Council Regulations (EC, Euratom) No 2988/
95 (1) and (Euratom, EC) No 2185/96 (2) and Regulation (EC)
No 1073/1999 of
the
Council (3).

the European Parliament and of

2.
For the Community actions funded under this Regulation,
the notion of irregularity referred to in Article 1(2) of Regulation
(EC, Euratom) No 2988/95 shall mean any infringement of a
provision of Community law or any breach of a contractual
obligation resulting from an act or omission by an economic
operator, which has, or would have, the effect of prejudicing the
general budget of the European Union or budgets managed by it,
by an unjustified item of expenditure.

3. The Commission and the Agency shall, each within its
respective sphere of competence, ensure that best value for
money is achieved in the funding of Community actions under
this Regulation.

(1) Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2988/95 of 18 December
1995 on the protection of the European Communities financial
interests (OJ L 312, 23.12.1995, p. 1).

(2) Council Regulation (Euratom, EC) No 2185/96 of 11 November
1996 concerning on-the-spot checks and inspections carried out by
the Commission in order to protect the European Communities'
financial interests against fraud and other irregularities (OJ L 292,
15.11.1996, p. 2).

(3) Regulation (EC) No 1073/1999 of the European Parliament and of
the Council of 25 May 1999 concerning investigations conducted by
the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) (OJ L 136, 31.5.1999, p. 1).

‘(l)

review the financial execution of the detailed plan
referred to in (k) and the budgetary commitments
provided for in Regulation (EC) No 1891/2006 of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 18 Decem-
ber 2006 on multiannual funding for the action of the
European Maritime Safety Agency in the field of
response to pollution caused by ships (*) on the basis
of the report provided for in Article 15(2)(g) of this
Regulation. This review shall be carried out when the
statement of estimates of the Agency's revenue and
expenditure for
the following financial year are
produced, as provided for in Article 18(5) of this
Regulation.

(*) OJ L 394, 30.12.2006, p. 1’

(b) The following point shall be added to Article 15(2):

‘(g) he/she shall submit a report to the Commission and
the Administrative Board, by 31 January each year,
concerning the financial execution of the detailed plan
for the Agency's pollution preparedness and response
activities and give an update of the status of all actions
funded under that plan. The Commission shall in turn
submit this report for information to the European
Parliament, the Committee established by Article 4 of
Decision No 2850/2000/EC and the Committee
referred to in Article 9 of Decision 2001/792/EC,
Euratom.’.

Article 8

Mid-term evaluation

The Commission shall submit to the European Parliament and
the Council, on the basis of information provided by the Agency,
a report on the implementation of this Regulation no later
than 31 December 2010 The report, which shall be established
without prejudice to the role of the Administrative Board of the
Agency, shall set out
the
the results of
Community contribution referred to in Article 4 as regards
commitments and expenditure covering the period between
1 January 2007 and 31 December 2009.

the utilisation of

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On the basis of this report, the Commission shall, if appropriate,
propose amendment of
this Regulation to take account of
scientific progress in the field of combating pollution from ships,
including that caused by oil or hazardous and noxious
substances.

Article 9

Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following that of
its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 18 December 2006.

For the European Parliament
The President
J. BORRELL FONTELLES

For the Council
The President
J.-E. ENESTAM