In a ‘non-paper’ presented to the Working Party on Customs Union on Tuesday 3 June, published by Agence Europe, the Commission details a draft amendment to the future reform of the Customs Code to incorporate its proposal for a ‘handling fee’ (or ‘processing charge’) for e-commerce packages from third countries, as outlined in its e-commerce initiative in February (see EUROPE 13572/5).
“To mitigate the risk of fraud and for simplification purposes, it is recommended to apply a flat amount instead of an ad valorem rate”, the document explains. “The fee (...) is not part of the customs debt, but it is to be paid together with it”, it explains.
The Commission would like to amend six Articles of the Customs Code, two of them substantially: Article 5, on definitions, to include the term ‘item’, as “one or more good[s] in a consignment sharing the same tariff classification, description and origin”.
And Article 18, which would be renamed ‘Charges, costs and handling fee’, would now incorporate the concept of “handling fee” and the differences in its amount, “depending on the type of business model used by economic operators”.
The Commission is proposing to introduce two tariffs: €2 per item or, where the importer is defined as ‘Trust and Check’ (‘T&C’) and ‘operating a customs warehouse for distance sales’, a fee of €0.50.
According to initial versions of the customs reform, T&C status would require traders to transmit real-time data on goods movements to the EU Customs Data Hub, a central platform for customs supervision.
The amendments to Article 18 also propose to give the Commission the power to “amend” these amounts by means of delegated acts.
This proposal for a fee per parcel seems to be gaining ground within the EU, with MEPs already in favour (see EUROPE 13644/13) and some member countries having already taken national initiatives along these lines (see EUROPE 13631/15).
See the document: https://aeur.eu/f/h67 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)