Oil Continues to Spill as Blame is Passed

An oil tanker that has been spilling its load into the sea off the coast of Spain has sparked an international row surrounding accusations of who is to blame.

The Prestige, a Greek-owned oil tanker registered in the Bahamas, has already spilled many of the 77,000 tons of oil it was carrying when it got into trouble during vicious storms that have been battering Spain and Portugal for the past few days.

The tanker is said to have a crack in one of its oil tanks and has been emptying its contents into the Atlantic Ocean since Wednesday evening. "It looks as if one of the tanks has emptied itself...They usually hold around 3,000 tons," a spokesman at the Emergency Coordination Center in La Coruna told Reuters on Thursday. It is estimated that the ship has lost half that amount from the holed tank.

Emergency workers are still trying to get the stricken tanker away from the largely unspoiled northwest Spanish coastline and avert an ecological disaster. Reports suggest an oil slick five miles long is trailing in the tanker's wake, which was last reported to be listing at an angle of 50 degrees and in real danger of sinking.

Rescue teams have managed to airlift 24 of the 27 crew off the Prestige, leaving the captain and two other crew members to assist in salvage operations. It is hoped that the tanker can be towed into deeper waters where, if it should sink, it would prove to be less of a threat to the Galician coastline, an important fishing area.

EU blames Britain and Gibraltar for lack of inspection

While efforts continue to stabilize the tanker, a storm of a different kind is brewing between the European Union, Britain and environmental groups as responsibility for the disaster gets passed from one to another.

The EU is angry with Britain and its Mediterranean outpost Gibraltar, claiming that proper checks were not carry out on the tanker when it docked at the Rock before its latest journey from Latvia. The office of EU Transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, has sent British authorities a letter questioning whether it carried out the required inspections of the Prestige.

Palacio said, under new rules, port authorities had to check 25 percent of all ships coming into dock and added that such inspections should be especially targeted at ships with a history of problems. He claims that the British authorities did not act under the new rules and as a consequence the tanker left Gibraltar in an unsatisfactory state. The Spanish government has echoed the EU's condemnation.

EU, Spain have placed blamed too soon, says Governor

In response, the governor of Gibraltar David Durie criticized the EU and Spain for holding the British colony responsible for the disaster. "Both the Spanish government and the EU commission appear to have shot from the hip," he told AFP.

"Shooting from the hip is not normally very accurate. On this occasion they both appear to have shot themselves in the foot."

In a statement released on Thursday, the Gibraltar government said that the Prestige had visited the colony only once in the past four years and was not officially heading there on this trip.

Environmentalists, who have warned that one of Spain's most scenic regions could face ecological catastrophe if the tanker continues to spill its cargo, have placed the blame on the EU's doorstep.

Greens pushed EU to take steps but with no action taken

The Prestige, an aging single-hulled 44,000-ton vessel, was built in Japan in 1976 and last underwent inspection in 1999. Environmentalists have long argued for stricter EU regulations demanding single-hulled vessels to be phased out and replaced with reinforced hulls of double thickness.

The EU has said that single-hulled tankers will be phased out completely by 2015. Many green organizations believe that, together with the plan to implement a ban on tankers of the Prestige's type and age in 2005, the EU actions will be too little too late.