Can EU laws tackle smuggling and forging?

The European Union has a fight on its hands, and this time we aren’t talking about Brexit. The battle is against the illicit trade in contraband and counterfeit goods and the culprits are organised crime and even terrorists, its prime beneficiaries.

According to a report published by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual Property Office in April 2016, imports of counterfeited and pirated goods have doubled in less than a decade and are worth nearly $500 billion a year, or around 2.5% of g...