Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-16-Speech-1-147"

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"Mr President, the Customs Union is a vital part of the internal market of the European Union, which cannot function properly unless common principles are applied to its external boundaries. Apart for the obvious function of collection of duties, the Customs Union plays an enormous role in protecting the health and safety of our citizens. Over the last months we have devoted a considerable amount of time within Parliament to debating issues such as product safety, especially with regard to the safety of toys, and to issues of counterfeiting. It is important for all of us to obtain goods that fulfil set criteria, especially as regards not being dangerous to our health or life. I would like to remind you that, despite generally accepted opinions, counterfeit goods do not affect just exclusive and expensive products, but also car parts and everyday products such as foodstuffs and medicines. Many such products are imported into the European internal market from third countries. Statistics give an idea of the scale of this issue. In 2007 customs authorities seized about 128 million counterfeit goods. This was an increase of 70% as compared to 2005. For medicines, it was an increase of 380%. Of course there may be various causes for this increase. It could be caused by an increase in the quantity of counterfeit goods coming into the EU, but it could also be a result of improved detection by the customs authorities. We should remember, however, that standards by themselves are not enough if there is no effective monitoring at our borders, and, particularly, if monitoring is not carried out in the same manner at every point in our external boundary. For the fight against the flow of counterfeit goods into the EU to be effective there has to be improved cooperation between customs authorities and the supervisory authorities in the EU Member States, as well as cooperation with customs authorities in third countries. This improved cooperation has to keep up with technological change. For this reason it is very important that the customs authorities throughout the European Union have proper equipment that will enable them to carry out their duties effectively."@en1

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