Oettinger calls for halt to deep sea drilling

Commission to tighten liability rules

The European Commission today (7 July) called on member states to forbid any expansion of oil drilling off their coasts until investigations are completed into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Given the current circumstances, any responsible government would at present practically freeze new permits for drilling with extreme parameters and conditions,” Günther Oettinger, the European commissioner for energy, said in Strasbourg.

“This can mean de facto a moratorium on new drilling until the causes of the accident are known and corrective measures are taken for such frontier operations as the ones carried out by the Deepwater Horizon,” Oettinger said.

Oettinger, who was speaking before the European Parliament, said the Commission would come forward with proposals in the coming months to improve the environmental safety of offshore drilling in the EU.

He said that the Commission saw “room for improvement” in the existing EU legal regime for determining companies’ liability for repairing environmental damage.

“Our legislative framework should guarantee…an unequivocal liability regime,” he said. “We will not hesitate to make…legislative proposals, either amending existing legislation or proposing specific legislation for off-shore activities,” he added.

The commissioner said that he was considering placing “insurance obligations” on firms, to ensure that they cover the costs of repairing environmental damage caused by oil spills, or alternatively requiring them to pay into a “special European fund”.

Oettinger said that the Commission would consider how to improve the EU’s mechanisms for responding to oil spills. He said that he would examine whether to expand the competences of the European Maritime Safety Agency, which is based in Lisbon.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster began in April, when an oil rig owned by BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The collapse of the rig caused a massive, and continuing, oil spill that has caused billions of dollars in economic and ecological damage.

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