A Czech member of the EU Parliament has questioned whether the high number of illicit cigarettes entering France should be principally a matter for the French authorities; as the Commission suggested last month.
In a preamble to his question, Tomáš Zdechovský said that, in its response to parliamentary question E-003300-18 [see TR‘s story of September 21, 2018: Going it alone], the Commission had confirmed that, ‘OLAF [European anti-fraud office] can bring significant added value by helping co-ordinate anti-smuggling operations’.
However, in relation to the cigarettes smuggled from Algeria to France, it had stated ‘France has so far not requested OLAF’s assistance in this regard’.
‘It is estimated that the annual revenue losses to the EU due to cigarette smuggling amount to as much as €10 billion every year; France has the highest volume of illegal cigarettes in the EU, and OLAF has the ‘unique investigative mandate to fight tobacco smuggling into the EU,’ Zdechovský said, before asking:
‘Given that the issue in France is precisely that of tobacco smuggling into the EU, should OLAF not be more proactive?’
One for all, all for one
