Mutual assistance between the Member States for application of the law on customs and agricultural matters

Parliament adopted the report by Mrs Theato. It tabled numerous amendments to the Commission proposal which sought inter alia to eliminate the need for the agreement of the person involved in an investigation to allow the transfer of information to third countries, to eliminate the absolute need to link the Commission's missions to third countries to cooperation with the competent authorities of the Member States, to introduce a right of the European Parliament to conduct missions in third countries, to grant access to non-personal CIS data not only to the competent authorities of the Member States and of the Commission, but also to the European Parliament, which held the power of investigation, to made express provision for direct access to CIS data by the judicial authority, and to require that the possibility of relying on serious reasons as against the application of the regulation be limited only to cases where public policy was affected. Furthermore, it reserved the right to call for the conciliation procedure to be opened should the Council intend to depart from the text approved by Parliament. �