Parliament decided to table 7 amendments to the Council's common position. The amendments aimed to:
- reaffirm the need to define, at the level of the International Maritime Organisation, valves for vapour control and recovery systems and the adaptation of the Marpol Convention, or failing this adaptation, a definition of the standards applicable to port installations and ships;
- authorise the Member States to grant aid or establish incentives for the necessary investment, subject to prior consultation of the Commission;
- do away with the exception for rail tankers from the requirement for mobile containers to be designed and operated so as to accept and retain return vapours from storage installations or terminals;
- require mobile containers to be equipped with loading gauges;
- ensure that the Commission published a report every three years on the application of the directive and its proposals concerning valves for vapour control and recovery systems to loading installations and ships;
- provide for the possibility of programming operations for painting tanks with heat-reflecting paint to be carried out as part of the usual maintenance cycles of the tanks within three years.
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