TRANSPORT COUNCIL, 13th AND 14th JUNE (Hansard, 16 June 1994)

§ Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish

On the first day, the Council discussed a number of maritime safety issues and reached a common position on proposals on the training of seafarers, minimum standards for ship classifiction societies and lower port fees for environmentally friendly oil tankers.

We gave a presentation on the Donaldson report in the "Braer" incident off Shetland. We emphasised three 110WA recommendations of special interest: port state control, improved ship identification using transponders, and emphasis on the "polluter pays" principle. We received strong support from all member states and the Commission, who felt that the report was a very positive basis for future work on maritime safety and agreed to further detailed discussion by the Council.

Other items discussed included maritime com-petition, freedom to provide maritime services and maritime relations with West Africa.

On the second day, the Council reached provisional agreement, subject to a UK parliamentary scrutiny reserve, on a common position on a directive harmonising conditions for transport of dangerous goods by road. The Netherlands and Spain entered abstentions.

The Commission presented a Communication on the way forward for civil aviation in Europe, drawn up in response to the Wise Men's report published in January of this year. We welcomed the Commission's paper while emphasising the importance of elimination of state aids and full implementation of the Third Package of aviation liberalisation measures.

Among the other items discussed was a'proposed measure which aims to establish common criteria for allocating train paths to operators and charging for access to the railway network. We argued that the scope of the measure should be limited to international services and drew attention to the special treatment that would be needed where traffic rights had already been laid down (e.g. the Channel Tunnel) or where necessary to get new infrastructure built. The Council also discussed, but made little progress on, mandates for road transport negotiations with Eastern Europe and transport negotiations with Switzerland.

Under Any Other Business, we reported on the review recently undertaken by the UK into the provision of seat belts in coaches and minibuses. Our conclusion from this report was that there was now a good case for requiring the fitting of seat belts to new vehicles. We emphasised the importance of this issue for road safety and asked how work was progressing within the Commission. In its response, the Commission informed the Council that it was working on a Directive which would introduce new roof rigidity standards and emergency exit requirements. Existing seat belt legislation was also being reviewed under the guidance of a group of experts and a separate proposal covering the fire resistance of materials was being examined. The Commission was committed to having all of these proposals on the table by the end of 1994.

Two votes were taken. On the dangerous goods directive, as noted above, we entered a parliamentary scrutiny reserve and the Netherlands and Spain abstained. On the seafarers' training proposal, Italy abstained.