The European co-legislators met for the second time on the evening of Wednesday 15 October to discuss the reform of the Union Customs Code. In particular, they discussed the mission and governance structure of the future EU authority (EUCA) (see EUROPE 13678/31).
“We were talking about the composition of the management board”, explained the rapporteur for the European Parliament, Dirk Gotink (EPP, Dutch), to the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) the following day. He said that all the technical work on the selection process for the EUCA headquarters had been completed. The Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is expected to open the nominations to Member States shortly.
“[The Member States] have six weeks to send in a candidacy and then there will be the Commission evaluation and then the ball comes back to us”, he said.
The negotiators also addressed the issue of handling fees, introduced by the Council for small parcels entering the EU via distance selling (see EUROPE 13669/13).
“The Commission had proposed this to be a union fee that would then cover the costs of the increased inflows of products”, Mr Gotink pointed out. He added that the EU institution had “changed their approach to make it a traditional own resource, which is a totally different approach legally, but also in terms of what that would mean for the WTO and then for [how] the money is used”.
According to the rapporteur, the Commission has not provided clear answers. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)