United States, EU agree pact on container security and customs

United States, EU agree pact on container security and customs    The United States and the European Commission on Tuesday (Nov. 18) signed an agreement to cooperate on transport security and customs, and set up a working group to define standards on container security.
   The agreement to expand an existing U.S./EU customs cooperation agreement, by including transport security, was initialled by Robert Verrue,
European Commission director general for taxation and customs union, and Rockwell Schnabel, the U.S. ambassador to the EU.
   The agreement “will guarantee the right balance between trade facilitation and security by ensuring that general customs control of legitimate trade takes due account of security concerns and by creating equal levels and standards of controls for U.S. and European Community operators,” the European Commission said.
   The agreement covering all of the EU and the U.S. follows a period of criticisms by the EC about the U.S. signing bilateral container security agreements with individual EU countries, regarded by the European executive as distorting trade to and from Europe and treating different ports of Europe differently.
   The cooperative pact also follows U.S. initiatives, launched after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to establish international cooperation on security checks by customs before goods leave a country.
   The European Commission described the transatlantic agreement as a reciprocal agreement that ensures the security of containers that are “imported into, transhipped through, or transit the EU and the U.S.”
   An important element of cooperation will be the provision of advance information on cargo to target suspicious shipments, as already implemented under the U.S. “24-hour rule.”
   The agreement will be endorsed by the council of ministers of the EU.
   Meanwhile, the EC said that a working group due to define technical elements of cooperation on container security is “due to begin its work very shortly.” The U.S./EU working group will examine and make recommendations on issues including:
   * Defining minimum standards, in particular in view of participating in the U.S. Container Security Initiative, and recommending methods by which those standards may be met;
   * Identifying and broadening the application of best practices concerning security controls of international trade, especially those developed under CSI;
   * Defining and establishing standards to the greatest extent practicable for the information required to identify high-risk shipments imported into, transhipped through, or transiting the United States and the European Community;
   * Improving and establishing standards for targeting and screening such high-risk shipments, to include information exchange, the use of automated targeting systems, and the development of minimum standards for inspection
technologies and screening methodologies;
   * Improving and establishing standards for industry partnership programs designed to improve supply chain security and facilitate the movement of legitimate trade;
   * And identifying any regulatory or legislative changes that would be necessary to implement the recommendations of the working group.