Brussels, 25/08/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Italian Presidency proposes that Member States adopt a "strategy for customs cooperation under the third pillar" (justice and immigration) in order to "better protect the society and the economy against smuggling and fraud, crossborder organised crime and money laundering, and the threat to the environment". The Presidency bases its argument on the fact that "organised crime gives growing importance to customs fraud", and stresses the importance of "the contribution made by customs to the fight against terrorism". It considers that the Member States have "become more aware of the key role that the customs administrations have to play in the fight against crossborder organised crime and in the defence of citizen safety in the Union".
The Presidency considers it is essential to make customs administrations cooperate but also the law enforcement services, not only within one country but also with other Member states. It suggests the existing legal instruments should be improved and new instruments created if necessary, and mainly proposes reflection on a common training approach within customs administrations as well as between these administrations and the law enforcement services. The Presidency stresses that it is necessary to strengthen the cooperation of customs administrations with OLAF, Europol and Eurojust. The draft strategy suggests that the Council's cooperation group should strengthen its links with the other groups, mainly those responsible for border protection.
In its draft strategy, the Presidency insists on collaboration with acceding countries. It proposes setting in place "concrete links" with the customs administrations of third neighbouring countries to the acceding countries through judiciary and customs cooperation agreements.
In its proposal of strategy, the Presidency evokes possible financial, technical or logistic support from the European Commission, mainly for the creation of information systems on customs issues under the third pillar.
The strategy would be established by an action plan over two years, reviewed at the end of each year.