Ship-scrap rules put on ice

The European Commission has postponed the publication of a green paper on a regime governing the dismantling of ships for fear of a clash with forthcoming international rules.

The Commission was expected to start talks this month on the best way to end the dangerous break-up of old ships in poor countries. But confusion inside the Commission and in the shipping industry about the scope of an EU strategy has prompted the environment department to replace it with an internal ‘orientation debate’.

"The commissioners realised ship-scrapping is a problem that touches many areas," said a Commission official. "There are still some fundamental questions about how it would work."

In particular, the Commission has to decide whether EU investment should go to developing European scrapping yards or to improving facilities in poor countries. It also has to agree how European rules will fit with a strategy being drawn up by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).

France has led countries stressing that EU rules must be in line with the IMO strategy. French President Jacques Chirac last year sparked demands for clarity from the shipping industry after he recalled French aircraft carrier Clemenceau from its journey to Indian scrapping yards.

A Commission official rejected rumours that Brussels had caved in to pressure from France not to reopen the debate ahead of French elections next month. "It would be very flattering for us to think the Commission can influence elections," he said, "but no, that has nothing to do with it."

Guy Sulpice of French shipping group Armateurs de France said it was important Europe did not rush its own strategy.

"The EU plays an important role in setting ship-scrapping standards," he said, "but if Europe proposes its own rules before the IMO decides what will happen internationally we risk a totally incomprehensible situation."

He added that Europe could develop rules stricter than the IMO code, but only once the international strategy was clear.

Ingvild Jenssen of the Global Platform on Shipbreaking, a non-governmental organis-ation, said that the IMO strategy was unlikely to come into force until 2012 at the earliest.

An EU ban on single hull oil tankers will be applied from 2010, leaving a two-year gap in which these vessels will not be covered by tough ship-scrapping rules.

Jenssen said: "We can’t just solve one environmental problem - the use of single hull oil tankers - and create another - how safely to dispose of them."

"EU rules would not distort IMO rules," she said, "they would strengthen them."

The European Commission has postponed the publication of a green paper on a regime governing the dismantling of ships for fear of a clash with forthcoming international rules.