BONNER DEFENDS CSI IMPLEMENTATION IN EUROPE

BONNER DEFENDS CSI IMPLEMENTATION IN EUROPE    U.S. Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner defended the implementation of a container security program spreading across Europe’s major seaports.
   The agency’s Container Security Initiative (CSI) came under fire Friday with the European Commission’s decision to start infringement proceedings against four member states that signed agreements to participate in the program.
   U.S. Customs implemented CSI earlier this year to help protect the United States and a large portion of the global trading system from terrorists who might use container transport to hide weapons of mass destruction.
   CSI requires bilateral agreements with other governments to target and pre-screen high-risk containers in overseas seaports before they are shipped to the United States. Customs inspectors will also be stationed in CSI ports to work with their overseas counterparts.
   The CSI concept has been endorsed by the World Customs Organization and the Group of Eight nations.
   A handful of European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, have either signed agreements or announced their intentions to participate in the program. These bilateral CSI agreements have been viewed by some government officials as undermining the authority of the European Commission.
   “It is regrettable that at a time of heightened concern for potential terrorist activity, the European Commission has chosen to take action against its members states for participating in the Container Security Initiative,” Bonner said in statement Dec. 20. “This is an issue of national security. These member states have undertaken this initiative to help protect the global trading system from acts of terrorism.”
   Bonner said his agency is “sensitive to the European Commission’s concerns that CSI may cause some trade distortions.”
   “There is no evidence, however, that CSI has caused any trade distortions,” Bonner said. “Nonetheless, to address the concern of the EC, U.S. Customs is expanding CSI to all European ports that ship significant numbers of containers to the United States by implementing CSI at 11 additional European ports.”
   “These ports, in addition to those where CSI is already implemented, or in the process of being implemented, will represent nearly 100 percent of all containerized cargo shipped from Europe to the United States,” he added.