Jumping Jacques' flash in the pan

By Richard Meade

Wednesday 9 April 2008

YOU can’t always get what you want, or so the song goes. But no matter how hard he tried, it seems Jacques Barrot could not get what he needed either.

News that European Union ministers have rejected two Brussels maritime safety laws by a large majority may be a blow to the commission’s ego, but it’s unlikely to have raised much more than a passing snigger from most shipowners.

So why couldn’t Jacques get any satisfaction on this one?

Well, the civil liability directive in particular will not be missed; seeking as it did to increase liability for shipowners and ‘harmonize’ compensation payments. Remember it failed because government ministers thought it unnecessary and confusing, so god knows what chance anyone else had of understanding what it all meant.

The flag state directive is perhaps a little more divisive. National governments may have seen it as an unnecessary sovereignty grab, but there is a real issue here that needs addressing. Despite all the hand-wringing and whining about industry safety standards, calls for tougher regulation are generally made by the same governments that routinely fail to actually implement existing laws both at EU and IMO level.

Earlier this week Brussels had to unleash yet another avalanche of legal threats against countries failing in their duty to ensure that transport laws turn out to be anything more than an expensive paper exercise.

Jacques’ native France is expected to have another go at mustering agreement in the second half of this year, though barring a minor diplomatic miracle or a major rewrite most diplomats believe wild horses wouldn’t drag an agreement out of the council on this one. It seems he is a man out of time and this one may just have to fade away.

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