The 28 customs administrations of the EU must act as if they were one, by facilitating exchanges and protecting the health and safety of all citizens of the EU, the European Commission states in a communication on the future of Customs Union, which was published on Wednesday 21 December. It regrets the fact that the customs authorities are still not applying the rules of Customs Union in a consistent and uniform manner, even though these are the same for all member states.
The Commission goes on to say that cooperation with other authorities responsible for the management and security of the borders, such as the national border guards and coastguards, the European border guard and coastguard agency and Europol, must also be encouraged and strengthened. Similarly, the customs authorities, in the framework of their operations throughout the EU should have access to the information systems they need to deal with no fewer than nine customs declarations every second.
The Commission has therefore laid down a series of priorities: encouraging common agreement between the member states on the application of EU customs rules, helping the customs administrations to make the work of 120,000 customs staff more effective, improving and harmonising new EU-wide IT systems used for customs procedures in order to guarantee the best possible level of coordination and promote best practices to make it easier for the national authorities to work together and exchange information.
Work is also underway to look into how the customs authorities could fight the illegal trade in cultural goods carried out by terrorist groups. Future work will also be based around the management of human and financial resources and the provision of specialist customs equipment, such as mobile laboratories and safety scanners. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)