The Rapporteur Raffaele Baldassarre (EPP) presented his draft Report to Members highlighting his utmost satisfaction that the Commission has already taken into account the Parliament request to split the previous proposal on Fiscus programme into Customs and Fiscalis programmes. The main amendments tabled by Mr Baldassarre concern: the introduction of specific and operational objectives to be included in the Regulation in order to increase its visibility and legal clarity; an additional emphasis on the harmonisation and standardisation of the procedures for customs controls and on fighting fraud; a political guidance (in term of percentage) of the distribution of spending amounts. Members expressed their full support to the Rapporteur's draft Report and stressed the importance of the programme's new objective on controls and fight against corruption and the objective of developing share models and IT architecture in the European Information System. Members also highlighted the importance of this financial envelope devoted to strengthening the functioning of the customs union in order to face today's challenges.
Source : © European Union, 2012 - EP