Brussels, 03/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - Six Member States have not yet set up all the required applications for the entry into force of the "New Computerised Transit System" (NCTS) on 30 June, according to a Commission report. Designed to limit fraud in good transit throughout the EU and to simplify customs procedures, the NCTS will replace the twenty million or so customs documents produced each year with a computerised exchange system. It was recommended in 1997 by the European Parliament's committee of inquiry into infringements and the poor administration of the Community transit regime. Its implementation had to be postponed due to insufficient preparation on the part of Member States.
The Commission states that at present, "at Community level, all Member States have committed to observing the deadline". However, it "notes that in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal, plans to implement it are based on extremely tight timetables", even more so in Austria, Greece, and Luxembourg.
The EFTA members in the system, Norway and Switzerland, have already linked their customs offices to NCTS. Of the accession countries, the Czech Republic was supposed to do this at the end of March. "It is likely that Hungary and the Slovak Republic will start to use the system before their accession". On the other hand, "the Commission is concerned about the implementation of NCTS in Poland. Warsaw has certainly not yet set a strategy to connect its operators to the system.
The other accession countries who were not party to the convention on a joint transit regime "must meet the conditions set down for enlargement". With this in mind, the situation in Latvia is troubling the Commission. Latvia must only decide in May 2003 whether to develop a national or a Community transit regime.
Piloted in four countries (Germany, Italy, Spain Switzerland), the computerised transit system has handled 200,000 movements, with a weekly average of 7,500 movements. At the time of writing, 868 customs offices (27% of the total) are linked up.