Strasbourg, 09/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - In its adoption of the report by the Frenchman Bernard Poignant (PES) last week at the Strasbourg plenary, the European Parliament has approved a slight modification to the proposed directive on the minimum level of training for third country seafarers (codecision, first reading). Parliament supports the objectives of the proposal: to improve maritime safety by guaranteeing a high level of training for third country seafarers, and to bring in a global certification recognition procedure per country (by evaluating their systems for training and awarding certificates). Notwithstanding, the Parliament feels that:
the evaluation procedure for a country's training and certificate-awarding systems should also take account of measures taken to fight fraudulent certificates of seaworthiness;
the conformity of third countries' training establishments to international standards in force should remain the responsibility of these countries: if one establishment in a given country ceases to be in conformity, the country as a whole will be penalised and recognition for all certificates issued in that country will be revoked within two months (unless measures are taken to remedy the situation);
certificates issued by third countries before the directive enters into force should remain valid;
the Commission should respect a three-month deadline for returning its decision on whether- or not- to grant a request for recognition of a third country's certificates, otherwise recognition will be granted automatically;
Member States should conform to the provisions of the directive no more than 18 months after the entry into force of the directive, which will be revised five years after its entry into force.