Shippers ask EU to reduce guarantees burden

The European Shippers’ Council (ESC) together with the other associations, such as CLECAT and IRU, has asked the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union to reduce the administrative and financial burden related to the guarantees against customs debts.  

Under the Union Customs Code, an economic operator should provide a guarantee if there is a risk of a customs debt for the goods that this operator is transporting or processing; or, if the shipper does not have a secured warehouse. A “customs debt” means the obligation of a person to pay the amount of import or export duty which applies to specific goods under the customs legislation in force. Thus, if the goods get stolen from a warehouse or during transportation, and a debt occurs, customs authorities can recover the debt from the guarantee. 

This rule also applies to the companies that have a status of the Authorised Economic Operator (AEO). 

Under the previous customs legislation, the guarantee was already applied and considered disproportionate. But under the present legislation, the mitigation of a guarantee is accepted less frequently and more cases are subject to the guarantee deposit. The companies providing the guarantee deposit or a guarantee from a bank, cannot use this money for internal investments, and the guarantee becomes “dead money.”

Aiming to address this issue, ESC has co-signed a letter with CLECAT and IRU, to reduce the number of cases and the amount of the guarantee.