Brussels, 18/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - With the adoption, on Thursday in Strasbourg, of the report by Patricia Mc Kenna (Greens/EFA, Ireland) on the role of flags of convenience in the fisheries sector, the European Parliament firmly condemned this practice that, it states, is aimed at "reducing costs and circumventing certain tax rules by using complex legal provisions". The Parliament invites the Commission and Council to: - re-examine the possibility of establishing a European system for the registration of craft (a European shipping register), that works in parallel to port State control; - develop and implement a regulation aimed at preventing ships from flying the flag of convenience and circumventing strict norms and controls concerning safety at sea and the protection of the marine environment. It also calls on the Commission to adopt a Community regulation, both commercial and customs, that makes the market of all Member States impermeable to illegal fishing products. MEPs call on all Member State to complete procedures for ratification of the United Nations agreement on fishing stocks and welcome the FAO international action plan concerning unlawful, undeclared and uncontrolled fishing, and encourages all governments to implement it "rapidly and in its entirety".
Furthermore, the Parliament congratulates the governments and the fishing industries of Japan and Taiwan for having established an innovative programme intended to repatriate or lay up over 125 tuna vessels registered under flags of convenience. It notes the decision taken by the South African government to ban from its ports the offloading of catches made by ships flying flags of convenience. The Parliament calls on the Commission during enlargement negotiations to ensure that the candidate countries transpose into their national jurisdiction the acquis communautaire relating to safety at sea. Finally, it recalls that one and a half years after the sinking of the Erika, the measures under the Erika-I package on safety in maritime navigation and above all the directives relating to the registration of ships and to the control of ships by the port State have still not been put into effect.
The Parliament considers that this kind of fishing leads to the following irregularities: - difficulties in recognising responsibilities in the event of unlawful fishing, accidents at sea and the evaluation of respect of competition rules on maritime navigation; - disastrous effects on fishing stocks, secondary catches, working conditions, and the salaries and safety of crews; - unfair competition to official fishing vessels that respect appropriate management methods. The EP is also opposed to the practice of certain States consisting of temporarily including in their maritime registers the ships known to have carried out fishing activities under a flag of convenience, a practice that can be likened to "money laundering".