I AM pleased to hear The European Commission is taking new action to help member states recover national treasures which have been unlawfully removed.

The loss of cultural objects, classified as "national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value" is a particularly severe form of illicit trafficking of cultural property.

Current legislation is not proving sufficiently effective in achieving the recovery of unlawfully removed national treasures and it has been proposed that member states will have greater powers to recover lost artifacts.

The changes would ensure that more cultural goods would be recovered, anyone requesting compensation for returning an object would be required to prove it was not knowingly acquired illegally, and information sharing between national authorities on the movement of culturally significant objects would be improved.

Criminals should not be able to illegally remove and traffic any of our national treasures from museums, galleries or anywhere else. We must safeguard our cultural heritage and this is an important step to ensure our nation's history remains protected.

I would like to hear readers' views on this and urge readers to get in touch via www.juliegirling.com Julie Girling

MEP for South West England and Gibraltar