The European Parliament yesterday (18 April), rejected proposals to create a ship recycling levy, despite pressure from the Environment Committee (ENVI) and environmentalists.

However, the group did call on the European Commission to propose plans for an ‘incentive-based system that would facilitate safe and sound ship recycling’, before the end of 2015.

Ship Recycling Levy

The levy proposal was recommended to the plenary by ENVI as part of plans to ‘clean up the scrapping of old ships’ and ensure the materials are recycled in EU-approved facilities.

It proposed making it a legal obligation for all ships calling at EU ports (regardless of country of origin) to pay a fee into a recycling fund to ensure the vessel’s safe disposal at its end of life.

Speaking earlier this month, Vice Chairman of ENVI and member of Greens and the European Free Alliance, Carl Schlyter, said: “Currently, most EU ships are sent to South-East Asia at the end of their lives, where they are beached and their hazardous materials harm human health and the environment.

"This [recycling fund] would steer ships that trade with the EU into proper ship recycling facilities.”

The levy was widely opposed by European shipowners, with Secretary General of the European Community Shipowner’s Association (ECSA), Alfons Gunier, saying that the fund would have “resulted in non ratification of the international Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships by the key recycling states (China, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan)”.

Agreed amendments

After a plenary hearing in parliament yesterday, the levy was narrowly rejected, with 299 MEPs voting against the proposal, 292 voting for and 21 abstaining.

The plenary did, however, agree that member states would be required to ensure that an inventory of hazardous materials is established on board each EU ship and that non-EU ships entering a port or an anchorage of a member state would also have to have a hazardous materials inventory on board.

If an inspection shows that the condition of ship does not comply with the inventory, penalties could be imposed.

Further penalties would be imposed on owners of EU ships that are sold and sent, within 12 months of the sale, for recycling on a beach or in a facility not on the EU list.

‘Narrow majority succumbed to highly misleading lobbying’

Speaking after the vote, Schlyter said: "While the EP has voted to put an end to European ships being recklessly scrapped in developing countries in hazardous conditions, this is jeopardised by the failure to adopt a financial mechanism to support it.

“It is very frustrating that a narrow majority succumbed to highly misleading lobbying by the maritime sector, seeking to shirk its responsibilities, and voted down the proposed financial mechanism that would have made safe ship recycling competitive.”

Campaigners for the levy, including the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, condemned the decision, with Patrizia Heidegger, Executive Director of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, saying: “The idea of a fund has been discussed for 15 years at the European level. Let’s face it: the parliament failed to uphold its own principles and to deliver as promised.

“Last year, one European ship was sent to a substandard beaching yard in South Asia every day. The EU needs to move now if it really wants to hold European shipowners accountable.”

However, the NGO ‘celebrated’ the fact that MEPs voted in favour of ‘more stringent rules’ that will effectively ban beaching of EU-flagged ship, but said that “a European ban on beaching without a funding mechanism to prevent reflagging of ships out of the EU at end-of-life, remains far too weak”.

A proposal to introduce an amendment for green ship design was also rejected by parliament.

Speaking after the levy was rejected, Gunier said: “We are pleased to note that the European Parliament has rejected in plenary the suggestions on the recycling fund.

“If such proposal would have been agreed, it would have delayed the intentions to improve recycling conditions globally which ECSA is asking for on the basis of the international Hong Kong Convention…We now urge member states to ratify soonest the Hong Kong Convention. ”

Next steps

Parliament's approval of the amended proposal gives Schlyter a mandate to negotiate a first-reading agreement with EU ministers. Discussions are to start in May.

Read the proposals for a ‘regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on ship recycling’ and find out more about the shipbreaking process.