European Parliament
Ortuondo Larrea (Verts/ALE ).
(ES)
I was rapporteur for one of the reports on the
Erika I
package. The
Erika
accident took place on 19 December 1999. I believe that the Commission did its work perfectly, because in March 2000 it presented us with this first package of measures. Parliament worked on it and, with more delay than we would have liked, we finally achieved a proposal in December 2000 – a year after the
Erika
accident – on which we had reached consensus with the then representative of the Council, the French Transport Minister. The day after that Council, in Parliament, as a result of the actions of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, the whole agreement we had reached became deadlocked, and the first
Erika
package was not approved until a year later (December 2001). And the worst thing of all is that it was not just the Group of the European People’s Party that held up this
Erika I
package, but also the Council, which delayed its common position with regard to double hulls until August 2001.
While we are facing another disaster, which took place in November 2002 – three years after the
Erika
accident – the Council and the Member States have still not brought the measures in the
Erika I
and
Erika II
packages into force. Hence my question: why are the appropriate decisions not taken so that we do not have to suffer another such disaster, and so that the adoption of measures is speeded up with the efficiency that this case demands?

