The European Shippers’ Council (ESC) presented its Authorised Economic Operator manifesto (AEO manifesto) to the European Commission.
With this manifesto, the ESC aims to give an indication of how, five years after the introduction of the AEO programme, this status is regarded by European Shippers and what the experiences are in practice.
The aim of the ESC is to create a discussion paper for politicians, policy-makers and government services (Customs) to develop a revised view of AEO.
ESC has found that at present there is a great deal of dissatisfaction among the members regarding the current state of affairs surrounding AEO. Oft heard remarks are:
In its manifesto the ESC concluded that there is no integrated AEO vision in the European Union and at national Customs Administrations, based on the premise of ‘monitoring is a joint effort’.
Strangely enough, members found that declaration processes are aimed more at individual transactions instead of a system based approach.
As a result, businesses are seriously wondering whether they should keep making efforts to retain the AEO certificate.
If the facilities are dwindling in practice and work is not urgently carried out on the structural introduction of system controls instead of inspections at a consignment level, the only conclusion the business community can come to is that AEO does not work as it should be.
[mappress] Press Release; July 30, 2014