A half-forgotten issue that still jeopardises lives: for MEPs, it's time to abolish all asbestos and get just recompense for its victims. EuroparlTV investigates.

Reporter: Living and dying with asbestos

What to do with the continuing problem of  asbestos contamination across Europe?

Removal measures so far aren't sufficient

and lives are being jeopardised.  EuroparlTV takes a closer look.

A graveyard in Belgium  for Europe's rusting toxic tubs.

Seen another way, in this age of recycling,

it's a birthplace of sound  economic and ecological sense.

Usable steel from old boats  is big business.

First, though, dismantlers have to remove  a lurking danger - asbestos.

The first protection is to the environment  when we are taking away the asbestos,

so that the fibres  do not go out of the vessel.

The second protection is the individual  protection of the workmen.

When this 50-year-old French destroyer  is declared safe for the cutters,

30-40 tonnes of asbestos  will have been removed.

As you can see, here we have  someone ready to go in.

We create a location  where our men can dress and undress

before they go inside the containment  and when they come out.

Every time they take a shower and then  they have to dress here in this room.

Across Europe a cleanup  has been going on for decades,

but many MEPs believe it hasn't gone  far enough and want new measures.

Existing rules still ignore the fact  that it's there.

Workers will continue to find it  for decades to come.

And the question of liability  and compensation?

Industry ran away for a long time  from the responsibility it had

I hope companies are starting to  own up more to their responsibility.

The evidence is very clear now.  There's no argument

that asbestos is not  the cause of a wide range of ailments,

particularly mesothelioma, within the EU.

They really have to come clean now  and pay the necessary compensation.

In a village near the Belgian city of Mons,

an asbestos death count is taking place.

A black dot for every person  who worked with the material

and died from  an asbestos-related disease.

That could be asbestosis,  when the lungs fill up with fibres,

The task is managed by Eric Jonckheere,  co-chairman of a victims' association.

We've drawn up a list  of nearly 130 names

of people who are no longer in this world

because they were lied to and they were  carried off by asbestos diseases.

So I'm touched to see that  in these human dramas

there are people who dare to stand up  and dare to say no,

even to big company directors,  great captains of enterprise.

These men came into contact  with asbestos

at a now-closed factory of the  construction materials company Eternit.

We'll never be able  to make them pay enough.

But I think that the Belgian government  is also responsible,

because it wasn't only  in the asbestos factories.

They put asbestos in schools  and there were problems too.

who travels the planet from  his company's base in Luxembourg,

lost his mother, father,  who was an engineer at Eternit,

They lived close to the plant  in Kapelle-op-den-Bos.

In 2000 his mother Françoise refused a  compensation payment from the company

of around 40,000 euros and launched  instead a claim through the courts.

Jan Fermon, a renowned Belgian lawyer,  is acting for the family.

For the first time in Belgian legal history

a court established the liability of Eternit,

saying that for decades  they knew what was going on.

They knew the danger  of what they were doing

and out of greed -  the court literally said that -

they just continued  knowing that this would cost

It and associated companies  employ around 1,000 people.

It's coming to accept the medical, social  and business consequences of asbestos.

During a briefing, Eternit's  legal executive, Roeland Verhille,

talks through several key points  from the company's side:

that many industries used asbestos  beyond the construction industry,

that the company stopped using asbestos  worldwide even before the EU ban,

that it doesn't deny the past,  and that it supports medical research,

a safe working environment,  and community programmes.

We have a past and we want to tackle it.

and we said it's not only about recognition  of victims, it's broader than that.

It's also about supporting medical  research, about our own premises,

and supporting the community  where we can.

And of the judge's findings  against Eternit?

We don't want to go into detail about the  appeal and that's something for this case.

I think it's more important to know  what Eternit will do about the past.

and we're trying to tackle it  in the correct way.

What next in the wider effort  to remove asbestos?

The EP wants a series of measures  to identify asbestos hotspots,

improved training for anyone  coming into contact with it,

help for victim support groups,  and a worldwide ban.

No easy thing to do, especially when  you're looking at high margins.

But Parliament's ambitions are high too,

looking at the prospects  for abolishing all existing asbestos

and getting just recompense  for its victims.

Governments have taken their eye  off the asbestos file, MEPs argue,

and it's time now to put the lid  finally on a modern-day scourge.