Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 18 April 2013 - Strasbourg

5.6. Ship recycling (A7-0132/2013 - Carl Schlyter) (vote)

– Vor der Abstimmung:

  Carl Schlyter, rapporteur. − Mr President, I would to like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs, because this negotiation procedure has not been the traditional ‘I want this, you want that, let’s meet in the middle’. No, it has truly involved listening to each other, integrating each other’s proposals and – after months of deliberations – finally finding a proposal that is workable and highly economically efficient. The aim of this is to deal with the massive market failure that is the vast majority of ships being scrapped illegally, in contravention of the 14-year-old Basel ban on the export of hazardous waste.

This report will feature a financial instrument that will make it profitable for shipowners to scrap their ships legally. The money collected will go back to the sector if they follow the law. Therefore, its aim is to make the market work well again and to protect workers and the environment. There has been a massive lobbying campaign against this proposal by the ports, but it is actually based on incorrect information.

I will make a complaint with reference to the lobbying rules on this, because a lot of information has been circulating that is not correct. They have been warning against huge administrative burdens, while the impact assessment said that this is a very efficient administrative way to deal with this problem. They have been claiming that port costs would increase massively, up to 167%, while the true figure is 3.2%. So, please support these financial instruments – Amendments 31 and 32 – so that we can negotiate with the Council, which stands ready to negotiate with us.

– Vor der Schlussabstimmung:

  Carl Schlyter, rapporteur. − Mr President, I would like to apply Rule 57 in this case too and postpone the vote on the legislative resolution in order to negotiate with the Council.

(Der Antrag wird angenommen.)