Brussels, 23/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Summit of Laeken should take a decision on the distribution of the different new European agencies, including the Maritime Agency that may be created by the end of the year. For now, the official candidates are: Lisbon, for Portugal, Piraieus, near Athens for Greece, and Genoa for Italy.
France, which is also demanding to host the headquarters of the agency, has not yet managed to put forward a candidate, for lack of agreement, it seems, between the Presidency of the Republic and the Government: the two most cited candidates are Marseilles, whose Senator-Mayor, Jean-Claude Gaudin, belongs to the "Republican and Independent" group on the right, and Nantes, whose MP-Mayor is the Socialist Jean-Marc Ayrault. Marseilles, associated with the city of Lyon, has made a move by publishing a press dossier in Brussels boasting of the city's merits. Yet, according to Marie-France Dewost, spokesperson of the French Transport Minister, Jean-Claude Gayssot, "the Agency will have to be on France's Atlantic front, which has suffered most from pollution and which is most exposed. Several cities are candidates, like Boulogne, Dunkerque, Brest, Honfleur, Cherbourg and Nantes. One idea that is circulating is to network the Agency under the guardianship of Nantes". In July, several associations representing the French shipping industry had asked the French government to demand the Agency's headquarters and arrive at arbitration (see EUROPE of 20 July).
You may recall that the European Maritime Safety Agency will be responsible for co-ordinating and checking the control activities of national authorities, preparing the technical aspects of European legislative texts and assisting candidate countries, notably Cyprus and Malta, to adopt European standards. Proposed by the European Commission in the framework of the second package of measures on maritime safety, the so-called "Erika II" package, the Agency will have a Community budget contribution of 7.6 million euro a year to be managed by some fifty experts.