DIFFERING VIEWS WITHIN THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION ON APPLICATION OF TBT RULES
- Published:
- 11 February 2002 12:06
- Updated:
- 11 December 2012 04:34
For many
years a European Union (EU) directive on the sale and use of harmful chemical
substances (directive 76/769) has been in force in Europe, but with an exemption
for TBT on vessels in international trades. For a long time, therefore, the
question has been: whether there would be an agreement on a ban on TBT in the
IMO soon enough to prevent the EU from adding TBT to the rules of its previous
directive on a regional basis. At a hearing with industry in Brussels earlier
this week, it once more became clear that the EU wants to apply the new IMO
rules (the Anti-fouling Convention) from 1 January 2003 even though the
Convention is unlikely to have come into force by that time.
There
is an important internal disagreement between various parts of the EU
Commission, however, where some argue that a ban on TBT should be imposed on all
vessels (irrespective of flag) trafficking in EU waters from next year whereas
others - including the officials dealing with maritime transport - argue that
such regional rules should at this stage only be applied to EU flagged vessels
and that the rules should only be applicable to third country vessels when the
Anti-fouling Convention comes into force.
Although application of the ban to EU vessels has some
problematic aspects of principle attached to it, it seems unlikely that this can
be resisted. INTERTANKO will, however, raise its concerns over application of a
regional ban to third country vessels at a high level meeting with the European
Commission.