The European Parliament,

A. whereas massive quantities of armaments were dumped in

various places, including the North Sea and the Baltic,

following the First and Second World Wars,

B. whereas many of these armaments contain toxic gases (such

as cyanogen, phosgene and mustard gas) and others include

explosive devices, such as torpedoes and mines, the firing

mechanisms of which are still operational,

C. concerned at reports of an 'ecological time-bomb' in the

Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm,

D. whereas this danger seems to stem from the practice,

employed until 1965, of sinking at sea, without any

precautions, chemical weapons used by the German army in

the Second World War and, in particular, highly dangerous

products such as 'Lost', 'Tabun' and the synthetic gases

'Clark 1' and 'Clark 2',

E. whereas, according to certain scientists, the 200 000

tonnes of chemical weapons sunk at sea at a depth of 85 m

have produced a gas bubble almost 400 m long north-east of

Bornholm,

F. alarmed at the enormous ecological risk which an explosion

of the bubble would pose to the Baltic Sea and the dangers

to the coastal population,

G. mindful that, if an accident occurred, for example as a

result of a shipping collision, fishing or a ship dropping

anchor, the effects on both the marine environment itself

and a large section of the coast would undoubtedly be

considerable with repercussions for the human population,

fauna and flora and various areas of economic and social

activity such as fisheries and tourism,

H. noting that the location of most of the dumping grounds is

unknown, some of them being military secrets, whereas

others such as the place where thousands of tonnes of

weaponry were deposited less than a kilometre from the

Belgian coast at Duinbergen (Knokke-Heist) can be located

exactly,

I. referring to other locations where similarly vast

quantities were dumped, directly endangering other

Community waters, including the Adriatic coast, the Bay of

Biscay, the Atlantic Ocean, the Irish Sea, the Baltic and

the Skagerrak,

J. noting the absence of any form of contingency plan to limit

damage as much as possible in the event of an accident,

1. States as a matter of principle that any form of dumping in

European waters must be avoided and condemns once again the

practice of dumping dangerous products at sea without

considering the risks involved;

2. Calls for the authorities concerned to cooperate in

charting where, and in what quantities, these munitions

have been dumped and what types are involved;

3. Calls, in the case of Bornholm, for the German authorities

to conduct an in-depth study to reconstruct the precise

details of the operation which led to the dumping of arms

in order to find out the volume of chemical products

offshore and their precise location, and to conduct a study

of the risks presented by the gas bubble and of possible

ways of recovering the chemical products without any

further damage to man or the environment;

4. Considers the current situation to be intolerable and

unjustifiable and calls for all of the weaponry to be

removed from Community waters as soon as possible, pending

its total destruction, and for contingency plans to be

drawn up immediately;

5. Calls for a thorough report on possible ways of disposing

of the munitions, either now or in the future, with an

indication of how they can be processed;

6. Urges the Commission, the Council and the Member States to

act without delay; draws the attention of third countries

to their undoubted responsibilities in this connection and

calls upon them to cooperate with the Community to the

greatest possible extent;

7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the

Commission, the Council, the governments of the Member

States and the governments of the Baltic coastal States.