Europe has taken the first step to providing a unified pollution response capability by chartering a number of oil recovery vessels for three years.
The move by the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is an attempt to “top up” pollution response capacity in Europe that was shown to be insufficient during the Prestige accident.
EMSA executive director Willem de Ruiter said: “The Prestige accident demonstrated the lack of high capacity response equipment in Europe and this weakness has now been partially remedied.”
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