Brussels, 22/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is being called upon to come up with an overarching inter-sectoral strategy by 2013 for the sustainable development of coastal regions and maritime industries. The European Parliament made this request on Tuesday 21 October when it adopted the report by Gesine Meissner (ALDE, Germany) assessing progress and identifying new challenges in the Integrated Maritime Policy that has been taking shape since 2007.
The EP asks the Commission to ensure the new Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) is given suitable funding in the upcoming Financial Perspectives (budget) from 2014 onwards and to look into all options, including the idea mooted by the Committee of the Regions of a coastal fund. The EP backs the Commission's idea of providing the IMP with €50 million over the next two years (2011 and 2012).
Preventing oil spills. The EP calls on the Commission to takc action after the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and to create legal certainty in the field of offshore oil drilling in Europe “by submitting a coordinated European action strategy for emergency preparedness and for tackling disasters caused by drilling rigs and tankers, at an international level especially in cases of cross-border contamination.” The MEPs suggest extending the mandate of the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) to safety inspections of offshore installations and the cleaning up of oil spills, in the review of the EMSA Regulation The EP calls for a review of EU Directive 2004/35/EC (on environmental liability) to ensure the polluter pays for pollution caused by offshore oil drilling.
Maritime governance. The EP urges the EU to take action within the Union for the Mediterranean to incorporate the draft code of good practice for fishing and fish-farming in the new international organisation.
Maritime basins. The EP welcomes regional indicatives and strategies for maritime basins suggested by the Commission and the macro-regional maritime strategies.
Maritime spatial planning. The EP welcomes the roadmap on maritime spatial planning (MSP), based on an ecosystem approach and the development of the ten planning principles.
Maritime surveillance. The EP reiterates its call for improved cooperation between member states' national inspectorates, coastguards and navies and reminds the Commission to carry out - as requested earlier by the European Parliament for 2005 in Directive 2005/35/EC - a feasibility study on further collaboration or integration between the different coastguard services, with greater interoperability between the different surveillance systems and with the prospect of creating a European Coastguard Service. The EP believes there is great potential for involving EMSA more fully in monitoring coastal areas and for calls on member states to step up efforts to ensure proper penalties are levied for maritime pollution.
The EP calls on the Commission to “consider a coordinated European industrial policy initiative aimed at increasing competitiveness, supporting the excellence of European shipbuilding, and the safety and environmental performance and competitiveness of shipping in the common maritime space without barriers, while making full use of the competitive shipbuilding capacity of Europe for this purpose and using environmentally sound technologies and alternative shipping fuels to promote 'green shipping'; and calls on member states to ratify the 2009 Hong Kong International Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships.”
Finally, the Commission is asked to integrate coherently the CO2 reduction targets and “introduce economic market-based instruments such as emission trading schemes into the maritime sector” and also to develop a strategy for reducing the impact of climate change on coastal regions and island. (L.C./transl.fl)