Brussels, 02/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - The lessons to be drawn by the European Union from the explosion on 21 September in Toulouse of the AZF factory belonging to TotalFinaElf were debated at length in Strasbourg on Monday by the European Parliament's plenary session, although the exact causes of the accident are not yet known. The European Environment Commissioner, Margot Wallström, did not fail to stress this when she presented MEPs with the very serious impact of the catastrophe - 29 killed, 20 people in a serious condition in hospital, 2,400 wounded, homes and the electricity supply system destroyed, not to mention the psychological impact of the accident, the worst of its kind since 1921, added the Commissioner.
According to Ms Wallström, the French authorities duly provided the Commission with the information required in such disasters, and the information available does not lead one to conclude that any of the factory's operators or the French government were responsible for the accident. The factory contained liquid ammonium, chloride, fuel, fertilisers and methanol. The explosion was due to the effects of ammonium nitrate, but the cause has not yet been identified, said Ms Wallström, adding that either way, the chemical factory was covered by the European Seveso II Directive in terms of major industrial hazards. The Directive came into force in 1999 (replacing and strengthening the 1981 Seveso I Directive) and makes it compulsory to implement preventative measures, a security system, internal emergency plans, providing inspection authorities with a safety report, providing information to people living close to the site and information on what to do in the event of an accident, explained the Commissioner. She noted that no Member State had abided by the deadline that had been set for fully transposing the Directive into their national law and for communicating their transposition measures, and that for this reason, infringement proceedings had been launched against them all. Five Member States (Belgium, Austria, Germany, Portugal and France) have been taken to the European Court of Justice for persistently failing to meet this obligation. The case against France (decided on 18 July 2001) concerns incomplete transposition of the Directive, but has no connection with Toulouse, said Ms Wallström. She added that they had no reason to suspect that there had been shortcomings of any sort by the operators (or in the French authorities' inspections). The risks had already been assessed, but nobody had predicted a massive explosion. The last inspection dated back to May 2001. The internal and external emergency plans were in place and restrictions had been made on any construction in the neighbourhood, explained the Commissioner, concluding that it was too early to draw any conclusions. The Directive's regulatory committee (made up of Member State representatives) will be meeting on 10/12 October to examine the information and follow up the accident.
Mentioning the amendments to be made to current EU legislation, Margot Wallström explained that the report provided last December by the Baia Mare Task Force (following the accident in a Romanian mine in July 2000) and also after the explosion of pyrotechnical material in the Netherlands in May 2000, had been followed up by seminars in the relevant Commission departments and a consultation exercise on the dangers of pyrotechnics and explosive substances, which would be used when amending the Seveso II Directive in October. In terms of how close inhabited areas of Toulouse were to the hazardous factory, Ms Wallström pointed out that Article 10 of the Directive stipulates that in the long-term, this type of factory must be kept away from inhabited areas - she added that in her view, this measure should be made compulsory in the near future. To help the Member States, the Commission published an interpretation document on land use in 1999, and a seminar was already being organised on this subject on the initiative of France, before the accident occurred, she added. The Commissioner also mentioned the future harmonisation of risk assessment methods as another course of action.
During the debate, many MEPs paid tribute to the spirit of solidarity that the inhabitants of Toulouse displayed, but lambasted the European Union's absence when it came to helping victims.
"What has the Union done to help us?" asked Christine de Veyrac (EPP, France), calling for EU emergency aid for cities and regions that was dropped from the Budget to be reinstated, and strengthened coordination of civil protection measures. "I would have been pleased to see firemen and rescue workers from other Member States in Toulouse", she said. She went on to add: "although zero risk does not exist, the reduction of risk probability is possible at local and national levels. This must be taken into account in revision of the Seveso Directive". Ms Pervenche Berès (PES, France) recalled that the disasters of the Erika, the 99 storm and that of Toulouse had befallen France without European solidarity showing itself within ERDF. Considering that it was necessary to "put our trust in French authorities for carrying out the inquiry in full transparency and with the determination to come to a successful conclusion", she invited everyone - public and industrial powers - to take their responsibilities pursuant to the conditions of application of the Seveso II Directive. She urged for "vigilance in the town and country planning policy to better reconcile urbanisation and industrial risk".
Three years after the Seveso disaster, history repeats itself. "Two Directives were not enough", deplored Frédérique Ries (ELDR, Belgium), who felt that the response to be given to these successive disasters is not a Seveso III Directive but strict application of the Seveso II Directive. "The precautionary principle did not prevail", she said, expressing indignation about the fact that a "time bomb" had been placed at less than five kilometres from the centre of Toulouse, where 400,000 people live. "This is not the only case in Europe. 360 million citizens are still waiting for a real town and country planning policy", she declared. Gérard Onesta (Greens, France) also felt that "just doing up the legislation, after each disaster, has its limits". He urged for recasting of the European policy so that it abolishes for ever the "cohabitation between chemical bombs and populations. In his view, it is not only risk management that is needed but rather distancing the risk, which requires the mobilisation of means by Europe and by industrials to help people move home or carry out vocational recycling so that we do not add a "social crisis to the environmental and human crisis". Like Maried Anne Isler Béguin (Greens, France), he nonetheless warned against the temptation, under cover of relocation, of exporting "our bombs" towards developing countries. He stressed the need for the Union to think about what the products that were at the origin of the explosion were to be used for - fertilisers, a source of pollution by nitrates - and "on the nature of its obsolete kind of production". Cristina Guttierrez (EPP, Spain) urged for a European framework for town and country planning allowing the establishment of a "European safety area" with protected areas, the creation of industrial zones outside towns and which sanctions administrations that tolerate the building of such plants. Along the same lines, Gilles Savary (PES, France) called for the introduction of the precautionary principle in town and country planning, to allow for urbanisation to be kept under control. The need to strengthen controls and safety, and the request for a report on security in Europe to be drawn up cropped up frequently in the debate, as did the incrimination of the financial reasoning that took prevalence over the protection of human lives. Arlette Laguiller (Lutte Ouvrière) and Alain Krivine (LCR) were the most audible on this.
Ms Wallström concluded by saying that: a) the expertise of the civil protection unit at the Commission is available to the French authorities but was not solicited by France; b) It will probably be necessary to wait one year before the exact causes of the accident are known, but as soon as they are known, the Commission will begin a consultation process with the Member States and all the parties concerned to improve the European directives; c) the prime responsibility lies with the operators of dangerous factories, as legislation cannot remedy everything; c) town and country planning, which is an essential element of the security problem in question, is the responsibility of local and national authorities, not that of the European Union. However, the idea of introducing a precautionary principle in the spatial planning legislation is an excellent point of departure to be taken on board by the Commission.