Mr President, Commissioner, this morning we will approve the Council common position definitively adopting this reform of the Community Customs Code. It could be thought, given that Parliament has not tabled amendments to the Council common position, that we have before us a perfect text. That is not the case, but it is a satisfactory text and, having given it great thought and following an extensive debate, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market decided not to table any amendments. What are the reasons for this? We need a little history. The reform of the Community Customs Code was enshrined in Article 253 of the current code and a reform was planned for before 1 January 1998. We are therefore somewhat behind schedule. This reform is important because it aims to re-examine the Community Customs Code in accordance with the progress of the internal market and of administrative techniques. It is therefore an important and urgent reform in a sector that, as we are all well aware, is the real core of European construction. Building a common customs system has been one of the major achievements in that progress towards European construction. The proposal aims to simplify customs processes by means of computerised or paperless declarations, to make the rules more flexible, to improve the procedure for collecting duties and to provide a more solid basis for applying the principle of good faith to imports that are subject to the preferential regime, establishing legal instruments that enable us to combat fraud and offering greater legal security. At first reading, in the Paasilinna report, Parliament adopted thirteen amendments of varying importance, which also met a variety of fates when they subsequently went to the Council. In its joint position that was definitively and unanimously adopted, the Council incorporated eight amendments and rejected five. I am not going to comment on the eight amendments that were adopted, as we are all in agreement with them. I am going to discuss the five amendments that were not incorporated. Three of them – Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7, referred to the commitology procedure. These amendments need to be considered in the new context of the interinstitutional agreement, and therefore, Parliament can agree to not insisting on these commitology amendments given that they have been superseded to a certain extent by the new interinstitutional framework. With Amendment No 15, Parliament wished to introduce a recital urging the customs authorities to apply customs rules correctly, to establish monitoring measures in order to ensure that it was applied consistently and to facilitate action against fraud. The Council considered that it was not drafted suitably in order to be included in the Community Customs Code and pointed out that there is a Green Paper – which is currently being converted into rules – specifically for combating fraud. We were therefore also able to accept this amendment not being incorporated. Finally, Amendment No 11 requested that this modification to the Community Customs Code enter into force before 1 January 2000 and is, therefore, no longer valid. Aside from these amendments, it should be considered that the common position modified the original text on which Parliament had agreed on two important points: the first is Article 220, in which the Commission aimed to maintain a longer period for conducting the investigations that could lead to a prosecution for fraud or a wrongful declaration. The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, following a long debate, considered that it was not reasonable to maintain legal uncertainty for a period of six years, and that three years, which is the period set, is a more reasonable period of time for establishing, with the appropriate means and the average proceedings, whether or not there were irregularities in a declaration. With regard to the modification of Paragraph 6 of Article 215, it should be said that we are dealing with a deeper issue, because the intention is that the additional declaration could be made anywhere in the European Union, especially wherever in the European Union the undertaking in question has its headquarters. On this point we consider that, given administrative and technical advances, instead of making an amendment on the legislative text, we preferred an amendment to the draft resolution that I hope the Commission will be able to accept. In a subsequent reform of the Community Customs Code, this will enable this idea to be incorporated, which is one that we feel is important and deserves to be promoted and supported by the European Parliament.

Political group: PPE-DE