ESC Delivers AEO Manifesto

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:

•  The investment costs for AEO are really high, while the cited advantages are disappointing in practice;

•  AEO status is not adequately recognised by customs during visits, for example in the context of a physical inspection;

• Mistakes reported in one’s own operation are penalised by Customs and not, as one might expect of an AEO contact, resolved jointly. In other words: the trust that has been built up offers no legal certainty;

•  If Customs wants businesses to exercise monitoring themselves, Customs will also have to share risks with businesses. Then the businesses can take appropriate measures. AEO should be about an integrated vision with some conformity checks by Customs. Currently that is not the case; and

•  The difference in approach among customer management is too great. Even internally within Customs there is, from the business community’s perception, a great lack of clarity about what advantages should be awarded to AEO businesses.

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