Negotiators from Parliament and the EU Council reached an informal agreement yesterday to extend the current ban on dumping at sea by ships of hydrocarbons and harmful substances by including among the pollutants it is prohibited the discharge also the waste water and solid waste of the vessels as well as the residues of the scrubbers, the equipment installed on the ships for cleaning the exhaust gases. The agreement was reached as part of the examination of the proposal for a directive amending the European Directive no. 35 of 2005 on pollution caused by ships and the introduction of even criminal penalties for pollution offences.

In addition, the obligation to review in EU the rules five years after their transposition into national law was agreed to assess whether marine waste such as plastic pellets and missing containers should also be subject to sanctions.

The informal agreement will have to be approved by the Council and the European Union Parliament, after which the member states will have 30 months to implement the new rules in their national law.

Commenting on the achievement of the agreement, the speaker of the Parliament, Marian-Jean Marinescu, highlighted that a firm effort is " necessary, with the use of advanced technologies such as satellite monitoring and on-site inspections, to eliminate effectively the illegal discharges. The sanctions must reflect the seriousness of these crimes, and act as a real deterrent. "