Committee on Budgetary Control Ordinary meeting
3 November 2026
Contents updated on 3 Nov 2026
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CONT European Parliament
Follow its sittings00:06 - 00:46
Speaker 1
So good morning, colleagues. This is now the continuation of our session. As our rapporteur and our colleagues are already here, I'm very happy to kick off this meeting. Although the Mr Sarvamaa is not yet here, but I hear he's just in front of the room. Maybe we can check that quickly.
00:46 - 02:56
Speaker 4
Well, okay, I will stop my intervention here and check for Mr Sarvamaa to come in. So now I take back the floor, welcoming all of you again and wanting to tell you that we are now starting with the European Court of Auditors Special Report 23 of 2026 on combating the illicit trade in tobacco in the European Union. I'd like to welcome, as already introduced, Petri Sarvamaa, our former member from the Court of Auditors now, and from OLAF Ernesto Bianchi, good morning, to give us an overview. He's the Revenue and International Operations Investigations and Strategy Director. In this special report, colleagues, the Court found that despite the efforts of the Commission and the member states, the framework to fight illicit trade in tobacco products is not sufficiently robust regarding the clarity of priorities and the EU-level coordination.
02:56 - 03:29
Speaker 2
The problem is a lack of comprehensive data on the size of the problem, its structure, and economic impact, as the information is scattered at both EU and member states level. The regulatory framework of the EU shows weaknesses and gaps, which impact the actions of member states. And in addition, the distribution of roles in the combat of the illicit trade in tobacco is fragmented between different players on both national and EU level. And on all this, we will hear now Mr Sarvamaa from the Court for 10 minutes.
03:29 - 03:33
Speaker 5
Over to you, Petri.
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