European shipping industry and shipper bodies have called on the European Commission to delay the planned introduction on January 1 of a “24-hour rule” concerning the declaration of containerised cargo coming into or leaving the European Union.
Despite commission protestations to the contrary, they claim that a number of EU states will not be ready in time to enforce the new rule and that chaos is like to ensue if the commission does not postpone its introduction.
The rule, which is part of a wider customs overhaul aimed at standardising customs procedures throughout the EU, will oblige “economic operators” to lodge entry summary declarations with customs at least 24 hours before starting to load incoming cargo in non-EU ports.
Similarly for outgoing cargo, declarations will need to be lodged with customs at least 24 hours before loading.
Both the European Community Shipowners’ Associations (ECSA) and the European Shippers’ Council (ESC) have called for the current transitional regime, under which the rule is already being applied on an optional basis, to be maintained until all EU states are ready to implement it on an obligatory basis.
ECSA secretary general Alfons Guinier argued: “If member states customs are not ready on January 1, 2011, there is no other option than postponement or a period of grace until they are ready.”
He said that the new rule could only be implemented if member states had the capacity to process advance cargo declarations electronically, which he claimed would not be the case for some countries.
“Working with paper copies is impossible,” he said, “and would not have any value on security whatsoever. Who is going to check piles of manifests manually?”
“The above position, particularly working with paper copies, is unacceptable to the industry who have spent time and money to have their systems ready.”
The ESC agreed with ECSA’s assessment, warning that there was a risk of “chaos and distortion of competition” if the commission did not postpone introduction of the rule.
“It is taking much longer than expected for the member states and industry to develop, implement and test their systems,” it said in a statement. At this moment in time, it is unlikely that member states across the EU will reach a common and uniform implementation of the security amendment from January 1 2011.”
Referring to the recent scare over airfreight from Yemen, it warned that it was essential that the EU had a cargo declaration system that worked efficiently.
“Failure to identify high risk freight could prove disastrous,” it said. “We do not want terrorists taking advantage of any chaos in the system, so it is better to ensure everyone is ready and implement together something that works, rather than rush in something that doesn’t and puts everyone at risk.”
At this point, however, the European Commission is not ready to accept that member states may not be ready for implementation on January 1.
A spokeswoman for taxation and customs commissioner Algirdas Šemeta claimed that there was every prospect that member countries would be ready to implement the new rule on time, at least with regard to imports.
“We are confident that all member states will be ready to receive entry summary declarations at import from January 1 2011,” she said.
She was less affirmative about exports, however, saying only that the commission was “working hard” to ensure that member states were ready on time.
She appeared to take the view, moreover, that any failure to be ready on the part of member states would be on their own heads.
“It should be noted;” she said, “that the 18-month transitional period, which started in July 2009, was a chance for member states, as well as for shippers and shipping companies, to familiarise themselves with the new rules.”
The commission had also set up a website to explain how the new rules would work.
“Therefore, we don’t feel that there should be any reason for delays after January 1 in the implementation of this amendment,” she said.
Andrew Spurrier
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