President. The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0400/2003) by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a European Union strategy to reduce atmospheric emissions from seagoing ships (COM(2002) 595 C5-0154/2003 2003/2064(INI))
Lucas (Verts/ALE), rapporteur. – Mr President, I want to start with a word of praise for the Commission. In the first reading on sulphur levels in marine fuel, the European Parliament asked for stricter levels for sulphur in marine fuel, and as a first step towards looking at this, I am very pleased that the Commission has requested a study which has now been produced - that looks into the particular issues involved, arising from a potential price premium for 0.5% sulphur in marine fuel. So I am very pleased to see the Commission taking the Parliament's initiative so seriously, and that is a very positive point to start with.
However, it is balanced by a negative point: we are still waiting for a common position on that proposal. The European Parliament's first reading was back in June 2003, so one preliminary question I have is why has the Council not made more progress? Could the Commission enlighten us as to when we might expect that common position? I hope that we could have it by early 2004 at the latest .
Regarding the Community strategy on air pollution from seagoing ships, as I have said before, I very much welcome the publication by the Commission of this communication on a European Union strategy to reduce atmospheric emissions.
As it states, the Commission has indeed set out a broad series of objectives, actions and recommendations for reducing the emissions of air pollutants from seagoing ships over the next ten years in order to reduce their impact on the environment and on human health problems in the EU. However, many of the proposals outlined do not go far enough and in my report I seek to encourage the Commission and the Member States to go a little bit further than outlined in that Commission communication.
The Commission very usefully sets out the scale of the impact of ship emissions. It is very important that we recognise that those impacts are far from being insignificant. In my explanatory statement I underline the seriousness of these impacts that we face. For example, ship emissions contribute to critical loads of acidity being exceeded by more than 50% in most of the coastal areas along the English Channel and the North Sea, in the Baltic Sea along the coast of Germany and Poland, and also in large parts of southern Sweden and Finland. So, the kinds of impacts we are talking about here are indeed very serious.
In terms of the main atmospheric emissions that should be addressed by the Commission communication, it already mentions sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulates, carbon dioxide and halon - all of these are quite rightly included. However, in my report, I seek to add two further categories of emissions that should be covered by the strategy: heavy metals and polycyclic aromatics, which are essentially hydrocarbons associated with cancer. I would very much like to see the proposal being extended to cover those.
The Commission is right to state that EU regulations on emissions standards are the best way to reduce emissions from ships in EU ports, territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. But, indeed, it is also right to note that economic instruments can also be one of the best means of promoting good environmental performance providing that what they are doing there is giving incentives to go further than the regulations and actually move towards coming up with the best available technology.
Another point about the objective of the communication is that it needs to be more explicitly aimed at reducing ship emissions of greenhouse gases in particular, looking especially at the impact on global warming. In relation to that, my report also asks the Commission to study how emissions from international maritime traffic could be included in Directive 2001/81/EC on national emissions ceilings when that is reviewed.
Furthermore, my report reminds the Commission of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, which requests that the Commission identify and undertake specific actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from marine shipping if no such action is agreed within the International Maritime Organisation by 2003. Since we can see that indeed no such action has been agreed within the IMO, I hope very much that the Commission will go ahead and initiate such actions without further delay.
On sulphur emissions, it is appropriate to mention the Commission's proposal on the revision of Directive 99/32/EC relating to the sulphur content of marine fuels. The Commission proposed only to reduce sulphur emissions from seagoing ships in European sea areas by about 10% compared to the emission levels in 2000. But, in order to achieve the objectives of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, emissions need to be reduced by at least 80%. The Commission must therefore be much more ambitious as regards the limit values it has proposed and, indeed, the sea areas to be covered by such limit values. My report therefore calls on the Commission to amend its proposal on the revision of Directive 99/32/EC in accordance with the European Parliament's first reading back in June, the aim of which was to reduce sulphur emissions by 80%.
The Commission should also publish, before the end of 2004, proposals for EU-wide economic instruments aimed at reducing atmospheric emissions from ships. Finally, I would like to see the Member States, the Commission and the accession countries really putting pressure on those countries that have not yet ratified the Marpol Annex VI Agreement. Only five Member States have so far ratified that, and it seems appropriate at this moment to call for wider ratification among accession countries and others as a matter of urgency.
Bolkestein,Commission. Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Lucas, for her thorough, well-drafted report on the Commission’s ship emission strategy.
Reducing ship emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases is a priority for the Commission, since we know that if measures are not taken, by 2020, ships in European Union seas will emit more air pollutants than all land-based sources combined. I therefore welcome most of the proposals in the Parliament’s draft resolution and I am pleased to say that the Commission is already working to take these forward.
For example, on market-based instruments, we are examining a range of possible options. We held a useful stakeholder workshop in September 2003 to which parliamentarians were invited.
On the issue of taking international ship emissions and EU national emission ceilings into account, we aim to launch a study soon to get a better perspective on how significant ship emissions are in individual Member States compared to land-based emissions. On the use of shoreside electricity and abatement technologies for air pollutants, we aim to use the same study to examine the costs and benefits and present positive examples. We shall feed the results of this work into the Clean Air for Europe Programme in 2005, and present proposals as appropriate.
The question of ship sulphur is of course subject to codecision negotiations on the Commission’s marine fuel sulphur proposal. The proposal as drafted would deliver a significant 40% reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions targeted in asset-sensitive northern Europe.
The Council’s progress on the proposal has been slower than we would have liked, but we have used the extra time to investigate the costs and benefits of the tighter sulphur limits proposed by the European Parliament in June 2003. In response more specifically to Mrs Lucas’ points, we share her concern about the slow progress in Council and we now hope that a common position will be agreed upon under the Irish presidency early in 2004.
We have found that the 0.5% fuel sulphur limit proposed by the European Parliament would give rise to a price premium of approximately EUR 70 on every tonne of fuel. The environmental and human health benefits of the tighter sulphur limit would still outweigh the costs but the overall cost to the shipping industry would double to over EUR 2 billion. We must consider whether this is proportionate, bearing in mind the Commission’s commitment to promoting a modal shift from road to sea transport.
Lastly, in direct response to a question raised by Mrs Lucas on the issue of ship greenhouse gas emissions, I am pleased to inform her that the International Maritime Organisation is due to adopt a strategy on this issue later this week.
Goodwill (PPE-DE).– Mr President, I should like to thank Caroline Lucas for her report and also pay tribute to Heidi Hautala, upon whose original report this is built and who is now back in national politics in Finland. It highlights an issue that the citizens around the European Union are not even aware of, despite the fact that what the Commissioner says is absolutely true. If present trends continue, over half the pollution produced in the EU will be out at sea.
It is true that the use of sea transport and inland waterways is the most environmentally friendly way of moving goods with the possible exception of a locomotive using electricity produced in a nuclear power station. It is important we see development of this particular type of transport. It is also true that we take the pressure off the roads. In my own country, lack of investment in roads means that one alternative could be the development of more coastal shipping, using ports, for example Scarborough and Whitby, in my region.
However, there is a downside to the improvements that we have achieved on land and in fuel quality. If you fill up your car with the latest diesel at 10 parts per million, the downside of that is that the sulphur, which has been taken out of your diesel, remains in the bunker fuel which goes to the ships, and could be 26 000 parts per million.
The Hautala report, at first reading, called for reductions to 1.5% in sensitive areas like the English Channel, the Baltic and the North Sea. It is very encouraging that the amendments that I put forward at first reading with regard to abatement technology were taken on board. P[amp]O Ferries, operating on the Dover-Calais route, have two identical ships operating, one with the abatement technology and one without. I hope the Commission will look at the initial results of those trials to see whether this technology is an alternative, more cost-effective way of achieving the aims that we want. I hope that these amendments will be taken more seriously by the Commission than some of the amendments that the Commissioner referred to, which call for even stricter levels that may not be cost-effective.
We must bear in mind that if we reduce the sulphur levels of fuel for ships, we increase the emissions at the oil refinery where these sulphur levels are reduced. It is important that we act internationally, and not unilaterally, through the International Maritime Organisation and Marpol Annex VI. It is particularly disappointing that only five Member States have ratified Marpol Annex VI. Unless there have been developments which the Commissioner could refer to, I understand that the United Kingdom - which is always critical of other countries that do not ratify agreements such as Kyoto - has not ratified Marpol Annex VI.
It is vitally important, when we look at emissions, to see where they take place. Emissions out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean do not cause us problems on land. I am worried that some of the more ambitious suggestions in Mrs Lucas' report, for example an 80% cut, are out of proportion to the cost. But we now have a reasonably balanced report which we will be pleased to support in the vote in plenary tomorrow.
Souchet (NI). – (FR) Mr President, Commissioner, as regards the subject of the Directive, one cannot disagree with the need to reduce atmospheric emissions of sulphur caused by maritime transport, which must agree to make the same efforts as land-based transport in this respect. Granite areas are particularly vulnerable to the phenomenon of acidification caused by these sulphur emissions and must therefore receive priority treatment.
We must ensure, however, that we do not penalise our own shipowners by laying down standards that do not give sufficient consideration to the international nature of maritime transport. In this area, as in many others, the Union is only an intermediary. The relevant forum for pushing forward the regulations is in this case the IMO.
That is why we are in favour of the measures to limit the maximum sulphur content of marine fuels used in the North Sea, the English Channel and the Baltic Sea as they are in line with the ceilings laid down by the IMO/Marpol Convention. There could also be extensions in this area if defined within the IMO framework.
We do not believe, however, that the rapporteur’s additional proposals on the two other aspects of the Directive concerning the levels applicable to passenger ships and ships in ports are appropriate. They do not integrate the need to proceed gradually in these fields in order to take account of the heavy technical constraints imposed on our shipowners by these new guidelines, nor the need to develop these emission reductions within the framework of the IMO, which seems ready to act. On the contrary, they give rise to discrimination that could harm European interests.
Bolkestein,Commission. Mr President, as I said earlier, the Commission generally welcomes this report. However, there are two points which the Commission finds difficult to accept.
First, I believe that a proposal to include polyaromatic hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the ship emissions strategy is perhaps premature. The monitoring of those pollutants is not currently mandatory in the European Union and no limit values are set. This is, however, considered in a new Commission proposal on ambient air quality.
Secondly, the Commission is somewhat disappointed by the proposal that ships travelling to remote island regions should be exempt from emissions policies. In our view, clean air is a human right for all EU citizens, no matter where they live. My services recently received a letter from a woman in Crete who protested about the filthy, black smoke which ships belch out into her house in Heraklion harbour. The use of shoreside electricity in harbours, which Mrs Lucas, the rapporteur, is trying to promote, would dramatically reduce emissions of both air pollutants and noise, offering real improvements in the quality of life in port cities.
Finally, I should like to stress that the essential plank of the Commission’s strategy is to work with Member States to promote global solutions through the International Maritime Organisation - the IMO. In that respect I should like to welcome, and indeed echo, Parliament’s call for EU Member States and acceding countries to ratify, as a matter of urgency, Annex VI of the IMO’s Air Pollution Convention, Marpol, and to submit proposals to the IMO for tighter global standards.
In conclusion, I should like to say to Mr Goodwill that the Commission is very interested in his comparison between the two ferries travelling between Calais and Dover. This is a controlled experiment that should be of value to us all.
Reduction of atmospheric emissions from ships
