European Commission Plans Big Spending Increase on Customs
The European Union is budgeting for major improvements to its customs system between 2021 and 2027, the European Commission said in a June 8 news release. The EC said it will budget about $1.1 billion in customs improvements for the six-year span, up from $616 million from 2014-2020, it said in a fact sheet. "The new customs budget will help customs administrations to deal with increasing trade flows and emerging trends and technologies, such as e-commerce and blockchain," it said. The EU collected about $23.9 billion in customs duties on imports during 2017, it said.
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The customs union "is an exclusive competence of the European Union, but the implementation of the legislation underpinning it is for national authorities to carry out," the EC said. "This means that the customs union must be complemented by supporting measures -- like those provided by the Customs programme -- in order to ensure that EU customs legislation is carried out in a harmonised way across our Member States." The program offers a framework for member states to "develop activities through cooperation among national customs officials on the one hand, and IT cooperation, on the other hand," it said. "This set-up is more cost-efficient than if each Member State were to set up its individual cooperation framework on a bilateral or multilateral basis."
A modernized program will allow for increased "information and data exchange between national customs administrations to better detect the flow of dangerous and counterfeit goods: a total of 2.7 million pieces of ammunition and 188,000 pieces of explosives were seized at EU borders in 2017," the EC said. Also, the updates will help customs authorities in protecting the financial and economic interests of the Union, as well as in the correct collection of customs duties, import VAT and excise duties," it said. This will "improve the capacity of customs administrations to deal with growing trade and changing economic and working models such as e-commerce and blockchain and will enhance cooperation and training across sectors."
Systems managed under the EU customs program include the anti-Counterfeit and anti-Piracy system, the Customs Decision System and the Registered Exporters Systems, it said. The new program will also improve risk management and facilitate the growing levels of trade. "EU customs authorities handled 331 million declarations last year," the EC said.