Another major oil disaster ‘just waiting to happen’, EU warned

Date:18/09/03

Martin Banks reports from the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions in Europe in St Malo

AN ENVIRONMENTAL disaster on the scale of the Prestige and Erika oil spills is "just waiting to happen" again, the EU has been warned.

The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe, usually known by its French acronym CRPM , is calling on the Union to get tough with member states to ensure they enforce existing controls on tankers to prevent another catastrophe.

The CRPM also wants the EU to introduce a "genuine" maritime policy, similar to the European space policy, to help improve the safety of ships in its waters.

Claudio Martini, CRPM president, told the body's annual conference in St Malo that "insufficient" interest shown by the EU in "things concerned with the sea" was a factor in both the Erika and Prestige disasters.

The 25-year-old single-hulled Erika split in two off the Brittany coast in December 1999, releasing more than 10,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. In November 2002, the Prestige spilled 70,000 tonnes after breaking up off Spain's Galician coast.

And a major clean-up operation has been ongoing since last December following the loss of the freighter Tricolor, which went down with its cargo of luxury cars after colliding with the container ship Kariba in the English Channel.

"We are calling on the European Commission to play a wider role in maritime safety than is currently the case," Martini told the CRPM's three-day conference, attended by more than 500 delegates from 25 countries.

"While maritime regions are the prime victims of events such as the Erika, Prestige and Tricolor, they are also the first to be called upon to deal with the damage caused by oil spills that all too regularly soil our coastlines.

"These regions should, therefore, have the right to contribute towards designing and delivering a genuine maritime policy."

The CRPM is pressing for at least observer status with the International Maritime Organization and to become closely involved in the work of the EU's fledgling Maritime Safety Agency.

To mark its 30th anniversary, the CRPM returned to St Malo, where it was founded in 1973.

It was the first European organization to represent regional authorities.

That the event took place in Brittany was a reminder to delegates that the region, which depends heavily on the sea for its livelihood, has seen two of the worst maritime disasters in history.

In 1978, the wrecked tanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 220,000 tons off the coast. Just over 20 years later, the Erika disaster brought further misery to the coastline from which it has only just recovered, according to Josselin de Rohan, president of Brittany Regional Council.

He said: "Physically, we have recovered from Erika but the mental scars remain. The great fear is that, unless rules governing the safety of ships at sea are properly enforced by member states, another disaster similar to Erika is just waiting to happen."

He recalled how, after Erika, many oyster farmers faced bankruptcy, nearly 1,000 shellfish beds were closed and holiday bookings at some resorts were down by 80%.

The sea-salt industry between Le Croisic and La Baule was threatened by polluted water and, for sea birds, the impact was even greater than the Amoco Cadiz sinking.

The count of dead birds topped 60,000 - 20 times more than in 1978.

Andrew Blackadder, of the Shetland Islands Council and president of CRPM's maritime safety group, said: "The sinking of the Tricolor and Prestige have again highlighted the glaring deficiencies of the maritime safety system.

"Regions affected by the oil slick have yet again had to make considerable efforts to compensate for the impact such disasters have on the economy, people and environment."

He said there was anger at the failure of preventive measures brought in by member states.

"To a large extent the safety legislation is there, the problem is that in too many cases member states are simply not enforcing it. Too many of them are dragging their feet when it comes to cooperating on maritime safety.

"Another problem is that some ship owners are still registering their vessels outside the EU, which means they are not subject to the same rigorous controls.

"To its credit, the Commission has tried to do something by drawing up a list of those ships which are considered to be potentially unsafe. What is needed, though, is better sharing of information about these tankers so that they are not allowed to sail in our waters."

He added: "My fear now is that we are in danger of losing the momentum for change which inevitably builds up after disasters such as the Erika and Prestige.

"This must not be allowed to happen."

• The CRPM will host a conference on maritime safety at Nantes on 13-14 October.

Maritime conference facts and figures

• THE Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions in Europe was launched 30 years ago in St Malo;
• at the time the CRPM was formed, the EU had just expanded from six to nine members;
• CRPM was the first European organization to represent the regions;
• it now represents 150 regions from 25 countries, both EU and non-EU members;
• members are spread far and wide, from Martinique in the Caribbean to the Maltese island of Gozo;
• the aim of the conference is to tackle disparities between Europe's central areas and its peripheries.

At the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe in St Malo in September 2003 there were calls for the European Union to act to enforce existing controls on oil tankers to prevent another maritime disaster such as the Erika and Prestige oil spills of 1999 and 2002 respectively.

http://www.cpmr.org/indexb.html http://www.cpmr.org/indexb.html

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