HIGH-LEVEL DECLARATION

Transcription

1 Preamble HIGH-LEVEL DECLARATION Declaration of the Directors-General following the High Level Forum on Customs Cooperation at the Eastern Border of the EU, Vienna, 9-10 October 2008 The participating customs administrations to the High Level Forum on Customs Cooperation at the Eastern Border of the EU, held in Vienna, 9 and 10 October Having regard to: The Final Declaration of the Conference on Customs Cooperation at the borders between the EU, Candidate countries and the New Independent States adopted in Imatra, Finland, in 1999; the Declarations of the Directors General following the Conference on Customs and Cross- Border Cooperation within the framework of the new neighbourhood policy held in Kiev in October 2005 and of the Conference on Customs Cooperation at the Eastern Border of the EU in Muonio, Finland, in December 2006; The Action Plans of the Working Groups on Trade Facilitation and Customs Procedures and on Security and Safety and the Fight Against Fraud endorsed by the Directors General of the Conference on Customs Cooperation at the Eastern Border of the EU in Muonio, Finland, in December 2006; The results of the joint Meeting of the Working Groups on Trade Facilitation and Customs Procedures and on Security and Safety and the Fight Against Fraud, Gdansk, Poland, June 2008; The Declaration of the Directors General following the Conference on Customs Cooperation in South East Europe in Brdo, Slovenia in March 2008; The Partnership and Cooperation Agreements concluded between the EC and its Member States and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine; The Action Plans concluded between the EC and its Member States and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) as well as the Common Economic Space and the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice established with Russia with their respective Road Maps; The objectives of the Eastern Partnership Plan as endorsed by the Council of the EU on 20 June 2008; The WCO SAFE/Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate Global Trade as adopted by the WCO Council in June 2005; 1 Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovak Republik, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the European Commission. The World Customs Organization attended as an observer. 1

2 The introduction in the Community customs legislation of measures aiming at reinforcing the security and safety of the international trade supply chain; The on-going comprehensive process of modernisation of the Community Customs Code and the Community 'e-customs' Community project on a paperless environment for customs and trade; The Modernized EU Customs Blueprints setting-up the pathways to modern customs; Whereas: The value and volume of trade, as well as the number of international consignments, is continuously growing; Customs administrations are the only governmental organisations with a horizontal view of international flows of goods but have limited resources to control the growing number of consignments; New threats in respect of security and safety are changing the traditional role of the customs administrations and are increasing its tasks and responsibilities, as customs occupy a unique position in the international supply chain and have extensive experience in risk analysis and control of goods; The need to ensure both trade facilitation and adequate control and security on the other will require customs to constantly develop state of the art solutions and to rely on international standards; International customs cooperation and sharing of information at a multilateral and bilateral level should be further developed and taken forward as an important tool to control international supply chain effectively; Computerization of customs procedures, including transit, and the use of internationally compatible information and communication technology systems are critical factors for international trade facilitation; In view of constantly rising number of customs declarations customs must look at new ways of working which will allow necessary control to be applied while reducing intervention in the flow of goods; Declare: That sustained efforts are needed to approximate customs legislation, procedures, documentation and practice to that of the European Union, in line with the provisions of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements and Customs Blueprints; That further customs reforms are needed in order to properly balance the need for security and safety of the supply chain and the facilitation of trade, involving the use of data processing techniques for the completion of customs formalities and controls and the cooperation between customs authorities, the provision in advance by economic operators of data relevant for the security and safety, supporting the implementation of risk management systems and combined with simplified procedures. The concept of Authorised Economic Operators (AEO), both for security and for simplification purposes will be instrumental in meeting this demanding 2

3 challenge, in particular through mutual recognition of this status between trade partners. That mutual administrative assistance in customs matters between the countries of the region should be used in most effective and rational way and that obstacles to its effective use should as far as possible be lifted; That integrated border management strategies, designed to simplify and enhance cooperation among the different agencies at the border, should be implemented. This could include, where feasible, implementation of the joint border controls; That all these challenges do require important reforms relating both to legislation, procedures, administrative capacity, equipment and infrastructure and that a precise timetable needs to be adopted in each country to implement these reforms; That the reforms are carried out in a strategic way in line with the modernization strategies formulated on the basis of the revised EU customs blueprints, and of the WCO standards where appropriate; That the European Union will continue to support this reform process through all cooperation and assistance instruments at the disposal of the Member States and the Commission; That it is important to develop an exchange of available customs-related information on goods crossing the borders, based on practical experience and using appropriate network and interface, insofar as it is closely related to the overall reform process, in particular with regard to procedures and infrastructures, and actually contributes to both trade facilitation and effective customs controls; Endorse: The recommendations of the Joint Meeting of the Working Groups on Trade Facilitation and Customs Procedures and on Security, Safety and the Fight against Fraud in Gdansk (Poland) in June 2008 and accept the priority areas of two Action Plans as agreed by the participants of the Gdansk meeting; Mandate: The two Working Groups established in 2006 in Muonio on Trade Facilitation and Customs Procedures and Security, Safety and Fight Against Fraud respectively, to meet at least every second year to decide on more detailed actions and in order to evaluate the results of the actions undertaken and to propose further actions. The joint meeting of the Groups may be considered as appropriate; Agree that: The main areas of concern as identified on the basis of the reports on implementation of the Action Plans - coordination between border control services, - communication across the border, - discrepancies in legislation and procedures, 3

4 - risk management; - resource and infrastructural shortfalls; Following this Forum each administration shall revise and where necessary- update the measures as defined in the updated Action Plans; Pilot projects may be continued and new ones established for the purposes of testing and gradual implementation of elements agreed upon in the Action Plans or by the Forum; The efforts should be continued to improve regional cross-border cooperation, in particular in the form of benchmarking, setting-up and maintaining of contact groups and contact points to facilitate communication between services operating on both sides of the border; The customs blueprints are useful in focusing and structuring discussion and cooperation among Member States and neighbouring countries to find common ground on problems and possible solutions, as well as for assessment of the operational capacity of the customs administrations and identification of areas of improvement The next High Level Forum on Customs Cooperation at the Eastern Border of the EU will be convened in 2010 to evaluate the outcome of actions and to provide guidance to national development and the two working groups and to decide on further actions and strategies; The European Commission will provide practical support for the meetings of the two Working Groups and the Forum, and will examine possibilities of support for gap/needs analysis workshops for neighbouring countries on the basis of customs blueprints; The next meetings of the two Working Groups and the Forum will be financed through Community instruments; Encourage: Customs administrations where appropriate- to prepare/ revise their business strategies in line with the modernized Customs Blueprints and the objectives agreed by this Forum. For this purpose, the gap and needs analysis against standards set up in the customs blueprints is recommended; In order to broaden awareness on the blueprints, the experts who represented neighbouring countries in Gdansk shall transfer to their home administrations the experience from the gap and needs analysis exercise. This could be further used to support the modernization of customs administration and applied procedures in a strategic manner, e.g. through formulation of a business/modernization strategy, or by updating the existing one; Neighbouring countries to translate customs blueprints into their national languages; Cooperation between EU Member States and neighbouring countries and assistance in the process of gap and needs analysis and preparation of customs modernization strategies and action plans for neighbouring countries, where appropriate; Regional cooperation to implement actions agreed upon in the Action Plans such as benchmarking exercises to share information on best practices, setting-up and maintaining of contact groups and contact points to facilitate communication between services operating on 4

5 both sides of the border; Development of close partnership with the business community; Participating countries and the European Commission to take any necessary steps for continuation of the execution of measures agreed upon in the Action Plans; The Directors-General thank Austria for organising and hosting this Forum and the warm hospitality as well as the European Commission for its support. Done in Vienna, on 10 October