By Ingvild Jenssen,
Policy Advisor and Founder of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform
The NGO Shipbreaking
Platform has actively contributed to the legislative process which in June 2013
ended with an agreed text for a new EU Regulation on Ship Recycling. The
Regulation entered-into-force on 30 December last year and will be applicable
within five years. However, unless an economic incentive is added to it, the
registration of European ships under flags of convenience (FOC) will allow ship
owners to easily circumvent the new rules and continue dumping their toxic
ships in substandard facilities. Reflagging has always been a convenient way
for ship owners to circumvent laws enforced by flag states and a regulation
based only on the voluntary registration under a European flag will not have
the promised impact.
Each year, the NGO
Shipbreaking Platform publishes a list of ships dismantled globally. In 2013, we recorded 1,213 scrapped vessels.
More than half of these were sold to substandard beaching facilities in India,
Pakistan and Bangladesh. South Asia has become a preferred dumping ground for
end-of-life ships as environmental, safety and labour rights standards are
poorly enforced there. In South Asia, ships full of toxics such as asbestos,
lead, PCBs and heavy metals are broken down on tidal mudflats by unskilled
migrant workers, many of them children. The number of fatal accidents due to
explosions or falling iron plates prompted the ILO to label shipbreaking in
South Asia one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Many more workers die
of cancer related diseases due to the lack of adequate protective equipment.
The hazardous wastes also ravage coastal ecosystems and have killed or
devastated dozens of aquatic species, destroying with this the livelihoods of
surrounding fishing communities.
Cheap labour and serious
infrastructural deficiencies are what drives the toxic ships to developing
countries. Ship owners sell their vessels to South Asian breakers for
considerably greater profit than if they were to sell to clean and safe
recycling facilities. Last year, approximately 40 percent of the ships scrapped
on beaches in South Asia were EU-owned.
Greece remains the worst European toxic ship dumper, closely followed by
Germany. Owners in these countries disposed a record-high 80 percent of their
end-of-life ships in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Comparatively, Japanese
owners sent 43 percent of their ships to South Asia, whilst Chinese owners in
vast majority opted for nationally available ship recycling capacity.
Once applicable, the EU
Ship Recycling Regulation will only allow ships registered under the flag of an
EU Member State to be dismantled in facilities that meet the requirements set
out in the Regulation. It will be the responsibility of the European Commission
to list these facilities. The Regulation disqualifies the beaching method and
will only allow for downstream waste management that effectively meets European
standards. Shipbreaking yards in South Asia will clearly not appear on the EU
list of approved facilities. Still, selling a vessel or changing its flag prior
to dismantling is not outlawed by the Regulation and will allow easy
circumvention of the new rules. Only ships sailing under the flag of an EU
Member State when heading for a dismantling yard will be covered by the new
Regulation.
Already, of all the
European owned ships that were scrapped last year more than two thirds were not
registered under an EU flag. Flags of convenience (FOCs) such as Comoros,
Tuvalu, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Togo and Sierra Leone, that are less favoured
during operational use, were excessively popular flags for the end-of-life
ships broken in South Asia. Unscrupulous ship owners have long used FOCs to
evade tax rules, license regulations, safety and environmental standards and
social requirements for the treatment of crew. Similarly, end-of-life vessels
can re-flag several times before reaching the dismantling yard, a practice
known as “flag hopping”, with the aim of avoiding stricter rules on ship
recycling.
Backed by shell
companies, joint-ventures and hidden owners, FOCs are considerable constraints
to combating illegal toxic waste dumping as they make it extremely difficult to
locate and penalise the real owners of the vessels. With the new Regulation being
a further incentive to flag out, vessels still registered under a flag of an EU
Member State at end-of-life is likely to decline to a disillusioning number of
ships, rendering the impact of the Ship Recycling Regulation non-existent for
the purpose of improving ship recycling practices and even negative with
regards to EU policies aimed at strengthening the EU fleet. Without a strong
incentive to ensure proper enforcement the new EU Regulation will in effect rid
the EU with its responsibility – and opportunity – to provide solutions to the
ship breaking crisis.
Taking stock of lessons
learnt on waste policies related to other products, such as end-of-life
vehicles and electronic equipment, the success of the new Ship Recycling
Regulation will depend on the introduction of a financial incentive which holds
the beneficiaries of shipping accountable for the costs and liabilities of
their vessels at end-of-life. Several studies, also those issued by the
European institutions, have stressed that a financial mechanism would be
legally and economically practicable, and, more importantly, necessary for the
effective implementation of the law.
Proposals for an
economic incentive have included the obligation for all ships calling at
European ports to either provide input to a ship recycling fund or bond; give
evidence of a dedicated recycling savings account; or hold a compulsory
insurance. Redistribution of the collected funds would then be made conditional
to safe and environmentally sound recycling and would close the financial gap
between substandard and safe and green recycling facilities. By involving all
ships that use EU ports or enter EU waters – regardless of flag – in a
mandatory financial scheme, the playing field will be levelled globally as most
large commercial vessels – regardless of flag – travel to the EU during their
operational lives.
Whilst the European
Parliament Rapporteur MEP Carl Schlyter received strong support for his
proposal to introduce a port fee for ship recycling by members of the European
Parliament Environment Committee, the scheme was rejected in plenary by only
seven votes. Prior to the plenary vote the European Sea Ports Organisation
(ESPO) surprisingly strongly lobbied against MEP Schlyter’s proposal, basing
their arguments on misinformed calculations of the costs involved. Ship owners
categorically oppose themselves to any regional regulation on ship recycling,
as they do for all shipping matters, and strongly reject any financial
instrument that would hold them liable for their end-of-life vessels as they
still do not consider ship recycling to be an issue of hazardous waste
management.
A mandatory financial
mechanism that ensures the internalisation of costs based on an individual ship
owner scheme; discourages reflagging prior to dismantling; and promotes green
design and pre-cleaning during the operational life of a ship will
significantly increase the chances for successful implementation of the new
Regulation. It will also reward those ship recycling facilities that have already
invested in better practices. The European Commission is to report on the
possibilities for a financial incentive by 2015, accompanied if appropriate by
a legislative proposal.
We urge the European
Commission and MemberStates to support the implementation of the polluter pays
principle. We also urge ESPO to provide input that will help develop a workable
scheme similar to existing port dues related to reduction of emissions from
ships. Without an economic incentive, circumvention of European law covering
end-of-life vessels will persist and the European shipping industry will
continue to be at the heart of scandals involving severe pollution of coastal
zones and exploitation of vulnerable workers in developing countries.
The NGO Shipbreaking
Platform is a global coalition of environmental, human rights and labour
organisations that works for the safe and environmentally sound recycling and
disposal of end-of-life vessels. www.shipbreakingplatform.org
Source:
government gazette. 15 April 2014
http://governmentgazette.eu/?p=5822
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