Strasbourg, 18/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - The adoption of Directives on maritime safety, proposed in March 2000 by the European Commission after the sinking of the Erika tanker in France, should be delayed by the opening of a conciliation procedure between the European Parliament and Council.
In fact, the European Parliament re-introduced amendments that the Council had refused, by adopting, on Wednesday in second reading, the reports by Josu Ortuondo Larrea (Greens/ALE, Spanish) on classification companies responsible for inspecting the ships, and by Mark Watts (ESP, UK) on the control procedures for ships in port by the port authorities ("control by the State of port").
By adopting the report by Ortuondo Larrea, the Parliament increased the amount of compensation that the classification companies will have to pay in case of an accident (due to their negligence) to brackets of: 1) EUR 4 to 7 million in case of bodily damage or death (instead of the ceiling of 5 million foreseen by the Council's common proposal), 2) 2 to 4 million in case material damage (instead of the ceiling of 2.5 million). The Council had only foreseen minimum ceilings for compensation, leaving it to the States to set a possible higher ceiling. The rapporteur hopes that the system of brackets will allow for the reaching of a compromise.
By adopting the report by Watts, the Parliament reintroduced into the considerations of the future Directive, the idea of making black boxes obligatory on board ships. The Council and the Commission were opposed, to the extent that the Commission had already proposed the introduction of black boxes in the framework of the "Erika II package" presented in December 2000, to complete the first legislative series of the "Erika I" package. The Parliament should be more conciliatory over this point.
Moreover, the Council had included in its common position a large number of the amendments from the Parliament's first reading on classification companies, for example to ensure that the classification companies have no personal or professional ties with the owners or ship owners of the inspected ship, or to increase the distribution of inspection results. The Council had also partly included the EP amendments on the black list of flags of convenience or the need to have a sufficient number of specialised inspectors.