By Henrietta Billings - 18th April 2004
MEPs are on Tuesday set to adopt a report highly critical of the Spanish government and its handling of the Prestige oil tanker disaster.
The report, by Liberal MEP Dirk Sterckx, blasts the authorities for decisions taken before, during and after the single hulled ship sank off the Galician coast in November 2002.
A special European Parliament committee on improving safety at sea, set up in the aftermath of the disaster, condemned the Spanish government's decision to tow the vessel away from the coast.
And MEPs called on the Spanish to tackle the remaining oil still left in the sea and the thousands of tonnes of waste in landfill sites.
The Prestige was carrying 77,000 tonnes of oil, and though most of it has been cleaned up, 20,000 tonnes remain unaccounted for.
MEPs want the authorities to put forward a detailed calendar for the extraction and clean up of the waste and want the expertise gained in the process to be available for tackling any future accidents.
The committee is also calling for a European coastguard to be set up with powers to monitor shipping routes and prosecute illegal vessels.
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