Strict measures against single-hull tankers to be urged

Spain, France and Portugal are urging fellow EU member states to back strict measures on single-hull tankers at next month's EU summit, the shipping publication Lloyd's List has reported.

The three countries want the EU to endorse faster phase-out dates for single-hull tankers than those agreed after the Erika disaster, a proposal that was first aired at the EU council meeting last December but which had received a cold response from some states at that time.

In December, the Maltese government protested with Spain, France and Portugal after they banned Maltese-flagged single-hull vessels from entering their territorial waters.

The Maltese register includes 300 tankers of which some 225 were built before 1992 and are therefore single-hulled. The average age of ships in the EU is 18 and several EU countries have single-hulled tankers on their registers. Some 80 per cent of Malta-flagged vessels are owned by companies in EU member states. But the Maltese and Cypriot shipping registers together have more tankers than EU countries.

The issue revolves over when such vessels should be withdrawn.

The original proposal was for them to be phased out by 2026. Malta pushed and supported an initiative to remove them by 2015. The IMO has given countries the option to extend the deadline by two years but Malta and Cyprus have declared that the phasing out should take place by 2015.

Lloyd's List reported that Spain, France and Portugal are urging other European countries to adopt an immediate ban on single-hull tankers carrying heavy oil. Spain and France have already started taking such action with the Maltese-flagged tanker Moskovskiy Festival, having been forced away from the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. The Enalios-Titan was forced off the French coast.

Malta Maritime Authority chairman Marc Bonello had protested after the Maltese-flagged ships were turned away from the Iberian and French coasts.

Greece, which controls nearly 40 per cent of European shipping and currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, is one of several member states urging caution and arguing that the proper venue for discussion on such measures is the International Maritime Organisation.

But Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, French President Jacques Chirac and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso in a recent letter to Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis said they wanted EU transport ministers to adopt a proposal to speed up moves to ban single-hulled tankers from European waters by 2010.