{"id":23332,"date":"2025-02-06T08:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-06T07:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/?post_type=actualites&p=23332"},"modified":"2025-02-04T15:01:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T14:01:38","slug":"commerce-illicite-un-protocole-daccord-confidentiel-entre-les-douanes-neerlandaises-et-lindustrie-du-tabac-revele","status":"publish","type":"actualites","link":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/actualites\/commerce-illicite-un-protocole-daccord-confidentiel-entre-les-douanes-neerlandaises-et-lindustrie-du-tabac-revele\/","title":{"rendered":"Illicit trade: Confidential memorandum of understanding between Dutch Customs and tobacco industry revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the request of the Dutch website TabakNee, Dutch customs have made public a cooperation agreement between the Dutch government and the tobacco industry on combating the illicit trade in tobacco products, which has been in effect for nearly 15 years. Public health experts warn that such an agreement is incompatible with the Netherlands' international commitments and are calling on the government to end this collaboration. <\/em><\/p>\n

The agreement reached in 2011 between the then Director General of Customs and two tobacco players (Stichting Sigarettenindustrie and Vereniging Nederlandse Keftabakindustrie) had attracted much criticism, due to its lack of compliance with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which the Netherlands had ratified six years earlier. However, the terms of the agreement remained secret for almost fifteen years, until Dutch Customs made the agreement public, at the request of TabakNee.<\/p>\n

The terms of the agreement have remained confidential since 2011.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The Memorandum of Understanding, now available online, states a partnership relationship between Customs and tobacco manufacturers, embodied in the exchange of information, the holding of several meetings per year, but also mutual assistance in the detection, investigation and prosecution of suspects. According to the very terms of the Memorandum, illicit trade in tobacco products is considered to cause "damage" to the public authorities and the tobacco industry. In reality, the various studies conducted on the subject show that tobacco manufacturers are the main beneficiaries of illicit trade in tobacco products. The tax losses associated with illicit trade justify in the Memorandum that a "joint action" be put in place, also designated as ensuring the health of users. Above all, the Agreement provides that all information associated with this cooperation remains "confidential", thereby raising the question of the transparency of interactions between public authorities and the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n

A partnership relationship praised by the memorandum of understanding<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This collaboration is described in the agreement as aiming to "identify, trace, deter and prevent" the trade in illegal products, including counterfeit products. In the protocol, manufacturers undertake to share information from their own internal investigations, in order to facilitate the work of public authorities. In addition, manufacturers must endeavour to assist Customs by providing them with information on the production and supply of counterfeit products in the Netherlands. In the event of a seizure of illegal tobacco, manufacturers are required to analyse the products from random samples, in order to determine whether they are counterfeit or smuggled. However, it is now established that the levels of counterfeiting in the illicit trade in tobacco products are deliberately amplified by manufacturers, in order to present themselves to public decision-makers as the victims of off-network purchases, rather than the beneficiaries. Furthermore, in the event of a significant seizure of contraband, the responsibility of manufacturers in controlling the supply chain is called into question, and the industry is likely to be sanctioned.<\/p>\n

A counterproductive agreement incompatible with the commitments of the Netherlands<\/strong><\/h2>\n

However, such a Memorandum of Understanding is in direct contradiction with the commitments of the Netherlands. Indeed, the implementing guidelines of Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control require Parties to limit their interactions to what is \u201cstrictly necessary\u201d, but also to be fully transparent when they take place. Furthermore, the WHO Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, also ratified by the Netherlands (2020), recalls the \u201cneed to remain vigilant to any efforts made by the tobacco industry to undermine or nullify strategies to combat illicit trade in tobacco products\u201d. As a result, the Protocol requires its Parties to ensure that the fight against illicit trade is fully independent of the tobacco industry. Public health and tobacco industry lobbying experts also consider the open-ended nature of the agreement to be problematic. Above all, collaboration with the tobacco industry is considered particularly ineffective, even counterproductive, since the involvement of the tobacco industry in illicit trade is now widely documented. In reality, these memoranda of understanding are used by the tobacco industry as levers of influence and credibility for the tobacco industry, presenting themselves as a solution to a lucrative phenomenon that it continues to fuel.<\/p>\n

\u00a9Generation Without Tobacco<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

FT<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

National Committee Against Smoking |<\/a><\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These memoranda of understanding are being used by the tobacco industry as levers of influence and credibility for the tobacco industry, presenting themselves as a solution to a lucrative phenomenon that it continues to fuel.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":23335,"template":"","tags":[],"thematique":[499,538],"class_list":["post-23332","actualites","type-actualites","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","thematique-lobby","thematique-marches-paralleles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/23332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/actualites"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/actualites\/23332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23332"},{"taxonomy":"thematique","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.generationsanstabac.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematique?post=23332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}