Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-232"
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"en.20071010.23.3-232"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my first words will be to congratulate the rapporteur, Bart Staes, who has managed to produce an excellent report on the difficult subject of the flaws in our Community Transit System. I am also most grateful to the European Court of Auditors which, in its report in December 2006, highlighted the scale of the problem very clearly.
I am disappointed, in this regard, that we are confusing the repercussions of the Philip Morris agreement, which we must remember is an agreement to drop legal proceedings and not a partnership agreement, with the serious problems of Community Transit. That is the reason for the amendment I tabled on behalf of the PPE Group, which aims to prevent the confusion.
On the subject of the industry, I propose that the European Union and the whole of the tobacco industry jointly finance a programme to combat cigarette smuggling and counterfeiting.
However, I want to focus my comments on the flaws in our Community Transit System. The European Commission tells us that it has strengthened the customs transit system by introducing a modern, robust computer system. It is forgetting that, though a computer system is necessary, it is never sufficient, and the reality is that it is the system itself that is flawed. It is flawed because it is conducted under the authority of the Member States, which means – as our rapporteur and the European Court of Auditors quite rightly pointed out – that the Member States are applying the new Community Transit rules with serious weaknesses.
In 1997 Parliament set up a Committee of Inquiry, which clearly stated that the EU should set up a framework to enable the customs services to function as one. We are a long way from this.
In 2005 our fellow Member Herbert Bösch highlighted in his excellent report the scale of the problems and the need to fight fraud and errors. The reality is, ladies and gentlemen, that this report invites us to think much more widely about the quality of our customs system, our financial circuits and, more generally, about the protection of the financial interests of the European Union.
In this, Commissioner, you have the full support of MEPs."@en1
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