EC’s Bolkestein endorses 24-hour rule, U.S. Customs agreement

EC’s Bolkestein endorses 24-hour rule, U.S. Customs agreement    Frits Bolkestein, European Commission member in charge of the European Union’s Internal Market, Taxation and Customs, told a freight forwarders’ meeting in Belgium that he welcomed 'the fact that the European Community will soon formally sign an agreement with the United States to expand our customs cooperation.”
   Reflecting on an accommodating change made in the European Community’s Customs Code, Bolkestein said the goal was “to strike the right balance between the need for greater security and legitimate concerns of traders. There is no point in having the greatest security controls in the world if they simultaneously kill off trade.”
   In changing its EC Customs Code, “the principle will be that cargo information should be provided to customs authorities 24 hours before goods arrive in the EU. This is very different from the U.S. measures, which require advance cargo information 24 hours before loading in the country of export,” Bolkestein said.
   “The legislation already foresees derogations for certain types of traffic and authorized economic operators,” he explained.
   “Authorized operators would receive trade facilitation and simplifications in return for their meeting predetermined criteria which ensure proper and secure conduct of their logistics operations. The commission foresees not only importers and exporters to be authorized operators, as the current situation is, but opens the concept to all stakeholders in the supply chain,” Bolkestein said.