EU inaugurates European Maritime Safety Agency

The permanent headquarters of the European Maritime Safety Agency was officially inaugurated in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday, after operating temporarily from Brussels since its creation in 2002 in the wake of the Erika oil tanker disaster.

The agency's principal mandate is to ensure a "high and uniform level of safety and security, thereby preventing accidents and pollution at sea," according to an EU statement.

EMSA, which has an annual budget of EUR 44.6 million and a staff of 120, is also tasked with controlling ship building and maintenance, the training of sailors who work on ships registered in any of the 25 European Union member states and harmonising maritime laws across the EU.

Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, the EU commission president, told Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and EU Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot, who were among the officials present for the inaugural ceremony, that half the EU's population lives less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the sea and that almost half of intra-EU trade is by sea.

In June the EU Commission published a "Green paper" calling on the 25 member nations to adopt a maritime policy to ensure that economic development is compatible with protecting the environment and called on them to coordinate their policies on maritime transport, the shibuilding industry, coastal regions, offshore energy, fishing and the fight against pollution.

Erika, a Maltese tanker carrying 31,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, sank off the French coast of southern Brittany in December 1999.

Its toxic cargo coated the sea bed and washed up on the rocky Breton coastline, unleashing a long and expensive operation to get rid of the muck.