10 Amendments of Laura FERRARA related to 2015/2352(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas Article 194 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union specifically upholds the right of a Member State to determine the conditions for exploiting its energy resources, whilst also upholding regard for solidarity and environmental protectionits Article 11 specifically establishes that environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and development of the Union's policies and activities, and its Article 191 establishes as objectives of the environmental policy the protection of human health, and the prudent and rational utilisation of natural resources, among others;
Amendment 6 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas conventional indigenous sources of oil and gas contribute significantly to Europe's currrepresent ena vergy needs and are crucial at present for our energy security and energy diversitysmall and continuously declining share of world oil and gas proved reserves which is better to carefully conserve underground;
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
Ba. whereas the potential unconventional European sources of gas and oil, and especially gas and oil captured in shale formations, to be extracted by hydraulic fracturing, remain extremely uncertain –as the 2011-2015 experience in Poland has soundly demonstrated–, due to greater depths than expected, high clay contents, and geological barriers of significant complexity, and furthermore it is met by strong reserves, when not outright opposition, of many European citizens and Member states, due to environmental and other impacts and triggered earthquakes;
Amendment 15 #
Draft opinion
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas there is already an extensive body of international law and international conventions which govern the seas, including European waters, although they have a limited preventive capacity, as demonstrated by a decades-long record of environmental disasters linked to offshore spills caused worldwide by the extractive industry;
Amendment 22 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Underscores the fact that the Member States already have the world's best-performing offshore safety regimes and that overregulation in this area would seriously harm the competitiveness of theirthe strict respect of existing regulation in this area is a constraint to be respected in any circumstance by their extractive industries;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Points out that, as regards 'liability for offshore accidents and their consequences, the Offshore Safety Directive (OSD) channels it unequivocally to offshore licensees, i.e. the individual or joint holders of authorizations for oil/gas prospection, exploration, and/or production operations issued in accordance with Directive 94/22/EC1 . It also makes the licensees strictly liable for any environmental damage resulting from their operations'; however, there are founded doubts about this condition being sufficient, since it has been stated unequivocally by the same Directive that no existing financial security instruments, including risk pooling arrangements, can accommodate all possible consequences of major accidents; moreover, although the OSD contains specific provisions for liability and compensation-related issues, it does not put in place a comprehensive EU framework for liability, since it neither deals with liability for civil damage (i.e. caused to natural or legal persons, including bodily injury, property damage and economic loss, both consequential and pure), nor addresses criminal liability for offshore accidents, arising out of committing a criminal act qualified as such by the law. _________________ 1 OJ L 164, 30.6.1994, p. 3.
Amendment 38 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Underlines that the Commission itself has highlighted that liability for civil damage (i.e. third party damage, or 'traditional damage') from offshore oil and gas operations in the European Economic Area (EEA) is still poorly understood; at the same time, it highlights that the expectations of the public, civil society and some authorities are high, but there is no coherent perspective on the kinds of claims that would be permissible, nor how to manage such claims effectively in the case of major accidents – particularly accidents that cross boundaries;
Amendment 41 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Notes that there is a 'broad variety of financial security products available to hedge oil and gas companies’ operating risk. These range from self-insurance options, to third-party insurance, to mutual schemes such as the Offshore Pollution Liability Association Ltd (OPOL), to alternative risk transfer mechanisms and others'; this notwithstanding, none of them is able to fully protect the Member states from the combined consequences of the challenging insolvency and transboundary problems that can demonstrably arise from major offshore incidents;
Amendment 44 #
4a. Highlights that the consequence of such an incident is likely to be a socialization of the incident's costs to local communities, the State and other businesses dependent on the marine economy; such externalization can be further composed by the complexity of the existing international legal framework, which makes it difficult to advance successful transboundary damage claims;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Concludes that there is no need to give consideration to further legislation until the Commission has published its report on implementation of the OSD., while respecting the deadlines established for the Commission to publish its report on implementation of the OSD, due for July 2019, it is of the utmost importance for the Union to pursue actively during this period the research about how a comprehensive EU's framework for liability should be put in place, as a necessary complement to the regulatory process, in order to better protect possible damaged parties, and to better reflect European societal values;