European parliamentarians seek details of anti-illicit-trade agreements

Members of the European parliament’s budgetary control committee have asked the European Commission to provide parliament with all documents and correspondence related to the co-operation agreements the Commission signed between 2004 and 2010 with Philip Morris International, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and British American Tobacco with the aim of addressing the illicit trade in cigarettes, according to a Malta Today story relayed by the TMA.

The MEPs said the requested information was ‘of special importance to evaluate and analyse the possibility of conflicts of interest of the Commission emerging from those agreements’.

The EU’s anti-fraud agency, OLAF, has entered into legally binding and enforceable agreements with the manufacturers, which, taken together, have agreed to pay €1.65 billion to the EU and participating countries.

‘We demand comprehensive information on the relationship to the tobacco industry, in full disclosure,’ the MEPs said in a letter to the Commission.