Mr President, we are dealing with one of the few, but nevertheless serious, problems resulting from the removal of our internal borders. From the very beginnings of the single market, it was established that the free movement of goods had to be compatible with the protection of the artistic and cultural heritage of each of the Member States. It was, and continues to be, within the competence of each State to define its national heritage and its protection. Since 1 January 1993, however, measures became necessary, such as the harmonisation of requirements for sales and the uniformity of the control procedure for extra-community exportation. To this end, in 1992 and 1993, the Regulation and the directive which we are discussing today were adopted. The philosophy of the Regulation can be summed up as follows: each Member State is obliged to control the exportation not only of its own heritage, but also of any heritage which is located within its territory, but which originates in one of the other fourteen Member States. Nine years later, except for a few minor amendments, the text and the approach of 1992 are still in force. It must also be pointed out that the problem of the illegal trafficking in cultural goods and its impunity are more serious than ever. The forecasts are even more pessimistic if we bear in mind that, when the rich heritage of the candidate countries is incorporated into the single market, the current legislation may still be in force despite being shown to be insufficient. In 1993, the Commission committed itself to monitoring the progress and the degree of effectiveness of the two regulations in force every three years, as well as proposing corrections where necessary. It tried to do so in 1996, but, when it requested information from the Member States, it received no response from the majority of them. In some cases, the delays in incorporating the Regulation into the legislation of each Member State were scandalous; in four cases the Regulation did not enter into force until 1998. Finally, in 1998 the Commission obtained certain data, opinions and experiences and, on that basis, has produced the report which we are discussing today. It is a purely informative communication, that is, it does not contain any proposals for new measures or amendments of the current ones. It is a voluntary report, which lacks sufficient data to make objective measurements and also, in my opinion, lacks the criteria necessary to propose any improvement to the current procedure. We can, however, draw certain conclusions. Some of these conclusions, though fewer in number, are positive, such as the fact that the very existence of the two regulations has been sufficient to increase the awareness of administrations and public opinion and to bring about extrajudicial solutions. There are, however, a larger number of negative conclusions which can be summed up in one: the general practice is still that a Member State authorising the export of a cultural item does not check with its State of origin whether the item’s provenance is legal or illegal. In the majority of cases, the administrations of the Member States have not properly cooperated with each other, in particular the police and customs departments, that is to say, the units that are part of the Interior Ministries. It is here that I would like to point out one of the cruxes of the problem; on the one hand, these units of the administration have other border priorities relating to organised crime. On the other hand, this cooperation falls under the third pillar, which is so difficult to achieve, as you well know. Therefore, the situation is serious in two respects; the increase in the intra-community clandestine trade in historical and cultural goods, and also the increase in their exportation beyond our external borders. The explosion in the activities of organised networks, the unrestricted proliferation of antique dealers without sufficient professional standing or control and the practically universal impunity of the people responsible, either because the crime has been only recently defined, just a year ago, or because the mere allegation that a buyer has acted in good faith is sufficient cause for a case not to continue, are some of the reasons for this serious situation. For all these reasons, our report expresses the view that it is crucial that legislation is improved and that a qualitative change is made to the Community’s approach. We believe that this is a cultural issue, which the Council must deal with through the bodies responsible for culture in each Member State. These are crimes or failings which must be detected by Community operational units specialised in artistic and historical heritage; the Commissioner for Culture, rather than any of her colleagues, must make a diagnosis and propose a way of dealing with the situation. All of this should go hand in hand with the integration of the various teams of the departments responsible for trade, the police and customs, but, I repeat, this must be done from a predominantly cultural point of view. Our report also identifies certain difficulties, such as the existence of an unknown heritage in the possession of institutions such as the church. We propose certain specific measures considered to be very urgent – such as the use of the Internet to publish pictures and details of stolen objects – and we request that the Commission, under the direction of the Commissioner for Culture, produce a Green Paper describing the current situation, assess the effects of the Regulation and the directive, carry out a comparative study of the definition of heritage in each Member State and, above all, propose specific measures to improve the situation. The Commissioner for Culture, whom I have admired for years, has for some time adopted a lively and decisive approach to future tasks while remaining cautious and indecisive about the present ones. She has sufficient capacity and resources for this not to be the case. Through this report, Parliament seeks to express its anguish and alarm about the current situation which, despite being the result of the removal of internal borders, which is so beneficial in all other respects, is not being sufficiently addressed by the Community authorities.

Political group: PSE