In order to deal with the massive volumes of products entering Europe from Chinese e-commerce platforms, the European Commission will rely on its experience.
In a communication about the challenges linked to these platforms – due to be presented on Wednesday 5 February and a copy of which Agence Europe has been able to obtain – the Commission details the tools already in place and relies on their ability to use them to stem the flow of suspect products from China.
The document contains few concrete announcements. The European Commission reiterates the three areas that suffer most from the uncontrolled flow of Chinese products: “consumer safety, environmental protection and European competition rules”.
It advocates a “coordinated” and “holistic” approach, which includes a “set of actions involving the European institutions, the Member States and all the national competent authorities”.
Customs reform: the cornerstone of European measures. While currently being modified, this reform is presented by the European Commission as one of the main solutions. One of the starting points is the abolition of the exemption from customs duties for parcels worth less than €150, an exemption that represents a loophole specifically exploited by non-European platforms.
The Commission also wants to introduce “a non-discriminatory handling fee on e-commerce items”, which would be “proportional” to the value of the item in question and would “offset” the increased costs of customs controls.
From 2028 onwards, the reform should also establish a new European customs authority to ensure the coordination of national customs, an institution that could be brought forward “to 2026”.
The European Commission plans to launch a short-term control operation within a ‘priority control area’ to gather information on products that present risks to safety and non-compliance. In order to do this, it will rely on existing monitoring networks, groups of experts and stakeholders.
DSA, DMA and the use of AI. In view of the action already taken against certain platforms, such as Temu, Amazon, Shein and AliExpress (see EUROPE 13516/9, 13447/4, 13371/24), the European Commission is also reiterating the need to apply these new digital rules more strictly.
The institution also wants to promote “AI and new digital techniques” to check incoming products, using the future ‘Digital Product Passport’ (see EUROPE 13523/23), as well as a shared database.
Finally, the document mentions the forthcoming adoption of a number of consumer and environmental protection acts – “Circular Economy Act, Digital Fairness Act” – to strengthen the arsenal of European legislation in this area.
In 2024, the EU saw an explosion in imports from e-commerce companies, receiving 4.6 billion products: this was double the figure for 2023 and 91% of them came from China. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)