Curbs agreed on dangerous ships

Spain and France will this week adopt tough new measures to crack down on oil tankers sailing near their coasts, and will try to persuade the rest of Europe to join them later this month.

The action – agreed between the Spanish Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar and France's President Chirac – comes as another suspect tanker took to Europe's seas full of polluting fuel oil.

The two leaders say they are ready to prevent any dangerous tankers from sailing within 200 miles of their coasts. "Today we decided enough was enough," President Chirac said, after a Franco-Spanish summit in Malaga, where the measures were decided. Three years ago, France was hit by a spill when the tanker Erika broke up, affecting a long stretch of the coast.

The EU then agreed a package of new regulations, including tougher inspection standards and the creation of a European maritime safety agency. The world has also agreed to phase out single-hulled tankers by 2015. After the summit, Mr Aznar said: "We have decided ships built more than 15 years ago which have a single hull and transport fuel oil and tar and are a danger to our coasts must be exhaustively checked."

Tankers will have to provide the authorities of the two countries with information on their cargo, destination, flags and operators. If there is doubt about their seaworthiness, the authorities will make spot checks and, if still concerned, expel them from the countries' 200-mile "exclusive economic zones" laid down by the UN's convention on the law of the sea.

The Spanish Prime Minister said he hoped other European leaders would adopt similar measures at this month's EU summit in Copenhagen. Spain may also ask the UN's International Maritime Organisation to move the shipping corridor – at present 25 miles off the Galician coast – further out to sea.

Last week, the 26-year-old Byzantio tanker, carrying the same high-sulphur oil that leaked from the Prestige, left Estonia bound for Rotterdam and beyond, despite protests from France.