Coastal communities in call for masterplan on oil slicks

By Martin Banks

Date: 30/09/04

THE need to avert any more disastrous pollution incidents at sea was high on the agenda at the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions.

Often it is CPMR member regions which are left with the consequences of major oil spills such as those caused in 1999 by the Erika tanker disaster and in 2002 by the sinking of Prestige.

The CPMR is calling for areas hit by such events to be compensated far more quickly.

The organization also says that local staff and fishermen in maritime regions should be given formal training to prepare them to help in such emergencies.

Improved methods of beach-cleaning and better sharing of information about potentially dangerous tankers are other suggestions contained in a policy paper drafted by a group of CPMR maritime experts, which will be discussed at a CPMR seminar in Poitiers on 8 October.

François Desrentes, in charge of CPMR's maritime affairs, is based at the group's headquarters in Rennes, France, and can remember the Erika environmental disaster which hit the nearby coastline.

In December 1999 the 25-year-old single-hulled tanker spilled more than ten million litres of heavy fuel oil when it broke in two, killing thousands of birds and polluting a large stretch of the Breton coastline.

Desrentes says that, although it is now well over the worst, his region is still suffering from the impact, with pollution still evident on some beaches in Brittany.

Before the EU states had implemented the various items of marine safety legislation introduced in response to Erika, another oil tanker, Prestige, spilled 70,000 tonnes after breaking up off Spain's Galician coast in November 2002.

Desrentes says the CPMR's plans are "practical and useful proposals which are designed to help areas directly affected by such events deal with them more speedily, effectively and efficiently".

Delegates at the Stavanger conference were encouraged by the decision by José Manuel Barroso, incoming president of the European Commission, to appoint Joe Borg, from Malta, as commissioner for fisheries and maritime affairs - the first time a commissioner will have had direct responsibility for maritime issues.

"We have been calling for a commissioner for maritime affairs for many years, so Borg's appointment is most welcome. It is an opportune time to press ahead with a genuine, integrated strategy for the sea," says Desrentes.

The CPMR greeted as "a step forward", the fact that Borg will chair a taskforce to draw up a Green Paper on maritime policy, for probable publication towards the end of 2005.

However, Brittany's regional president, Jean Yves Le Drian, a former French minister for the sea, says the EU still has "much to do" in terms of developing an overall sea strategy, which, as well as improving the safety of ships in EU waters, could fully exploit the potential of Europe's vast coastline.

The CPMR says that, in order to achieve this, the EU has to develop a sea policy similar to the one it already has for Space.

It would embrace everything from shipbuilding to tourism, the processing of sea products as well as services for the offshore oil industry.

Desrentes says: "The Union does, it is true, intervene on certain maritime activities but its intervention is on a sector-by-sector basis and is not guided by any overall strategy, one capable of making the most of Europe's potential."

"It is a question here of both economic development and growth, of the place of Europe in a globalized world economy and of the preservation of a heritage to be bequeathed to future generations."

The CPMR is also pressing for observer status on the UK-based International Maritime Organization , the United Nations body which coordinates maritime safety policy.

At its meeting taking place in Stavanger, Norway, from 22-24 September 2004, the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), which represents 149 regional authorities from 27 countries, underlined the need to avert any more disastrous pollution incidents at sea.

Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe: Homepage http://www.cpmr.org/

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