Marine equipment

The rapporteur, Mr KAKLAMANIS, recommended a series of amendments that sought, inter alia, to guarantee the independence of the inspection agencies and to simplify the notification procedures. The Commissioner, Mr KINNOCK, stated that he agreed with Amendment No 3 and the principles set out in Amendments Nos 6, 7 and 9. However, Amendment No 8 was superfluous. For the same reason, he opposed Amendments Nos 1, 10 and 13, which were already covered by other articles of the Directive. He also rejected the definition in Amendment No 2 of an ‘EU ship’, which would restrict the scope of the act in question since an ‘EU ship’ was a ship for which safety certificates were issued by Member States pursuant to international conventions. The Commissioner opposed Amendment No 4 as it would do away with the interim period during which equipment for which a certificate had been issued by a Member State could be placed on the market and on board a ship. Amendment No 5 contradicted the guiding principle of the Directive, which was to impose international testing standards throughout the Community, and it was therefore incompatible with their harmonisation. Finally, Mr KINNOCK also rejected Amendments Nos 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 for legal reasons or because they were inappropriate.