Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-04-Speech-4-211"
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"en.20030904.6.4-211"2
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".
Mr President, firstly, a general remark: as I see it, in the way we are conducting this debate we are behaving like generals fighting a war that has already been fought. Personally, I share the view that it was quite some time before the EU got to the point where these rules were being clearly applied. But we have been doing this for some time now and this fact needs to be clarified. I would also add that the political need for discussion and energy to be injected into the subject has more to do with what to do now than with the starting-point of the discussion which related to the actual administration of the customs regime.
As a member of the Commission I do not recognise anything in our discussions or handling of this in the Commission that resembles what some have said here about questioning the unity of the Commission in relation to this issue. This has never been a divisive issue inside the Commission. Others have mentioned that Member States have to agree. That is absolutely correct.
Mrs Sandbæk asked why the Commission has not officially informed Member States about this and what it is going to do. I will repeat what I said in my first contribution to this debate, namely that following the confirmation received from Israel that its customs authorities certified goods coming from the settlements as being of Israeli origin, the Commission published a notice to the importers in the Official Journal in November 2001 in order to inform them of the situation. So almost two years ago the Commission did what Mrs Sandbæk asked. This is one element on which I based my first remarks. It sounds as if this debate is about a war that was waged some time ago.
In February this year – which was the time that the last internal Member States customs authorities met on this issue – about EUR 100 000 had been collected as permanent duties on these product categories from the beginning of 2003. We expect new figures to be available at the end of this month when the next meeting takes place. The amount of guarantees taken on these products by EU customs authorities at that time was as much as EUR 1.7 million.
When we are certain that the goods are coming from settlements, duties are applied immediately by Member States. Where there is any doubt, or where there is unclear or insufficient information about this from the Israeli authorities, we also apply duties after having checked as far as we can. This is being regularly reviewed within our Member States through the Customs Committee, which will meet again at the end of this month. This is something which is not just handled by putting a notice in the Official Journal; it is an active, ongoing process.
Finally, Mr Gahler asked about the modalities and principles of assessing the accumulation, and how much processing is necessary before it becomes an Israeli product. This is not the only place in the world where we have to decide on these matters. We follow general principles and criteria as regards how much processing is necessary before the origin of a product is decided. There is no special rule for Israel on this point."@en1
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