EU SEEKS MORE INFLUENCE IN CSI

EU SEEKS MORE INFLUENCE IN CSI    The European Commission is proposing to member states that they negotiate transportation security measures with the United States as a group rather than as individual countries.
      The Commission recently objected to member countries joining the U.S. Customs Service’s Container Security Initiative on their own. Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have already joined CSI, but the EC says ports in those countries could get better trade treatment from the United States.
      “This community-level approach avoids differential treatment of member states and trade diversion within the European Union,” the Commission said in a news release. Coordinated negotiations would also “ensure that legitimate trans-Atlantic trade is not hindered by the increased security arrangements and control standards are equalized for U.S. and EU operators.”
   Areas in which the European Union and U.S. Customs could cooperate would include:
* developing common definitions of key information for identifying high-risk goods and ways to collect and share information among for cargo analysis;
* establishing common definitions for controls;
* coordinating positions in multilateral forums;
* developing common approaches to enforcement.