SITPRO has published a new paper arguing that while the EU has placed Customs reform firmly in the context of the Lisbon agenda little more than lip service is being paid to genuine business concerns and that the European Commission's vision of a paperless trading environment for the EU has been eroded in the name of compromise. SITPRO believes that traders should be able to behave no differently in the larger EU than they do in their home markets and that Europe should not content itself with an upgrade of an existing system conceived in the mid-twentieth century based on principles established in the nineteenth!
SITPRO argues that the ultimate objective must be to create an up-to-date, transparent and low-cost IT system capable of managing the flow of border information. An integral part of this should be submission of data only once through the Single Window that SITPRO has long championed.
In addition SITPRO advocates that traders established in the EU should be able to:
- Complete all formalities wherever they choose and wherever it makes sound business sense
- Deal with only one Customs administration in respect of all Customs operations wherever it is located in the EU
- Assess their own liabilities, make their own duty and tax payments and submit to periodic audits to demonstrate compliance
- Expect that export declarations made in the country of consignment can be used as the basis for import information in the country of destination
SITPRO is optimistic that political will can overcome the obstacles to progress. Therefore, SITPRO is calling upon the Commission to devote sufficient resources to the reform programme and for it to engage with all border agencies and work for an integrated business friendly outcome.
SITPRO is convinced that an efficient paperless Customs environment could endow Europe with one of the most competitive trading platforms in the world. Politics is the art of the possible and SITPRO is certain that what it advocates is indeed possible and also politically attractive. More than that, it is essential if Europe is to keep its place at the top of the international trading community.
The full document Putting European Competitiveness at the Heart of 21st Century Electronic Trading is available from the SITPRO website at www.sitpro.org.uk/reports/eurcompet.pdf (pdf 598KB 
).
Return to SITPRO News: Issue 60, Spring 2007
