Position on the EU Customs Reform
Date
08 Nov 2023
Sections
Sustainable Dev.
Transport
Trade & Society
CONTEXT
PostEurop is the trade association that has been representing European public postal operators since 1993. PostEurop is also an officially recognised Restricted Union of the Universal Postal Union (UPU). It is governed by a Board of Directors, which is responsible for supervising and monitoring the implementation of the Association's strategy at operational level.
PostEurop supports the ongoing consideration of the future of customs and modernisation of the EU legislative and regulatory framework in this area1 and would offer a contribution to the legislative deliberations on:
- The Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL establishing the Union Customs Code and the European Union Customs Authority, and repealing Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 [COM (2023) 258 final]; and
- The Proposal for a COUNCIL REGULATION amending Regulation (EEC) No 2658/87 as regards the introduction of a simplified tariff treatment for the distance sales of goods and Regulation (EC) No 1186/2009 as regards the elimination of the customs duty relief threshold [COM (2023) 259 final].
Mission of customs authorities [Article 2 of COM (2023) 258 final]
The Proposal does not acknowledge the differentiated nature of State-designated Universal Service Providers (“USPs”) within the EU, operating as part of a single global postal territory, governed by the UPU. Moreover, the Proposal makes no reference to the differentiated nature of postal traffic, at all. This presents clear challenges for citizen-to-citizen postal traffic from 3rd countries, particularly in view of the ongoing humanitarian migration flows occurring due to global security and climate challenges.
This is a marked departure from the original COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) 2015/2446 of 28 July 2015, supplementing Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards detailed rules regarding certain provisions of the Union Customs Code, which under Recital 6 explicitly acknowledges the differentiated nature of postal.