Brussels, 02/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission and Member states have agreed on the best strategy to adopt to follow up the inadmissibility of their complaint, pronounced by the court of New York, against the American cigarette manufacturers (RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris) accused of being implicated in an affair of large-scale contraband on the Community market (see EUROPE of 25 June, p.9 and 19 July, p.7). It is the Member states (associated with the Commission) who are said to be preparing to complain on the basis, this time, of their own losses in excise duties. The Commission has asked that Member states to communicate their intentions to it soon, the deadline for the formal lodging of a complaint being set for 6 September. Of the ten Member states that rallied around the complaint lodged by the Commission in the name of the Community, seven are said to be legally prepared to pursue the action before the courts (Belgium, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal and Greece), unless any should desist. The Commission is said to be waiting for information from Italy and the Netherlands, whereas the French Government has again to secure a new mandate to lodge a complaint in its name, as its own was not sufficiently broad. EUROPE has reason to believe that the option consisting in settling the litigation outside the courts, as proposed by Philip Morris, was not raised in contacts between the Commission and Member states.
Remains that Member States, if they want to place all chances on their side, should try to estimated the customs debt due by the American tobacco companies (which the Commission was unable to do). Italy is the country most affected in the European Union by the black market in cigarettes, especially from Montenegro.