Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-233"
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"en.20071010.23.3-233"2
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".
Mr President, we expressly welcome this report, which is excellent. The term ‘own-initiative report’ is not quite accurate. What we are doing here is persevering with the subject of Parliament’s first Committee of Inquiry – and we shall continue to do so. I do not want to complain, but it is a shame that we have to do this at such a late hour. I note with interest on the list of speakers the groups that have asked to speak on this subject today. It seems it is always somewhat easier to complain about the scandals in the EU than to work on specific, positive solutions. The road there is sometimes long – we are talking about cigarettes – but it is a good one to take. We are making progress, and the Staes report shows this very clearly.
Of course, we have the incompleteness of European integration to contend with in this field. Various Ministers for Finance still cannot resist simply raising the tax on tobacco a little when the treasury is starting to look a little empty, wrongly earning praise from some health politician or other in the process. I say ‘wrongly’ because consumers of cigarettes simply switch to smuggled cigarettes or, increasingly, to counterfeit cigarettes. The profit from this kind of fraud goes directly to organised crime.
The fact that there is cause for us all to celebrate progress this evening makes me even more inclined to remind the House of an episode that does less credit to Europe, and particularly the Commission. There is evidence that, in the period 1992–2001, approximately 10 000 lorry-loads of cigarettes were smuggled into the EU via Montenegro, particularly heading for Italy. This is probably the biggest fraud against the EU budget of all time. The public prosecutor’s office in Augsburg, Germany, has made 60 requests for legal assistance in this connection. There have been confessions, convictions and all such things in Switzerland. Yet the European Union has not submitted any claims for recovery of own resources against the Republic of Montenegro. Commissioner, I should like us to be able to stand before our taxpayers and say, ‘We have looked into this matter, too’.
There are petty customs officials in Germany, Austria and Central Europe who have done great work in this field, but who it seems have been rather let down by the European Commission. We must deal with this mammoth affair, for which the limitation period is not yet at an end. That would be my wish in connection with what is by and large a very pleasing occasion for today’s debate."@en1
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