EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE-GENERAL TAXATION AND CUSTOMS UNION Customs Policy, Legislation, Tariff Customs Processes and Project Management Brussels, 01/06/2016 taxud.a.3(2016)2380286 FINAL Report of the Meeting Adopted at the 5 th meeting of the Group incorporating comments from Estonia on the draft document 1. Meeting: 4 th meeting of the EU Project Group on EU Guarantee Management System - C2020 CPG/109/004 2. Date and Place: 5 and 6 April 2016 Tallinn 3. Participants: 23 members of the group, as representatives of 16 MS (re Invitation taxud.a.3 FJ/cl(2016) 1094787). Bulgaria 1 Czech Republic 2 Denmark 1 Estonia 2 Croatia Italy 2 Latvia 2 Lithuania 2 Hungary 1 The Netherlands 1 Poland 2 Romania Slovakia 1 Finland 1 Sweden 1 United Kingdom 0 Total: 13 MS Total 19 experts Mr Frank JANSSENS Head of Unit TAXUD/A3 (Chairman of the meeting), Mr Stefan WESP DG TAXUD/A3 and Mrs Magdalena Carmen LAZAR DG TAXUD/A1 Customs Debt and Guarantees Sector. Commission européenne/europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111 Office: LX40 2/77 - Tel. direct line +32 229-54839
4. Results: I. Welcome and introduction by Estonian Customs (Mr Marek Helm) and European Commission (Mr. F. Janssens) Mr Marek Helm, Director General of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board and Mr Janssens welcomed the participants mentioning the importance of the mission of the group, initiated by DG TAXUD and hosted by Estonian customs and wished the meeting a good progress regarding the follow-up actions from the previous meeting held in November 2015 in Prague. II. Approval of the agenda The proposed draft agenda was approved without changes by the members of the Group. The main points are listed under this section (Results points I to IX) of this Meeting Report. III. Approval of the draft minutes of the 3 rd meeting (document taxud.a.3(2016)1253000 published on CIRCABC on 04.03.2016) The draft minutes of the previous meeting were accepted without changes by the members of the project group. IV. Questionnaire to all Member States Presentation of answers and results (published on CIRCABC on 21.03.2016) The answers of the Member States to the questionnaire which were received within the foreseen deadline of 11 March 2016 were presented in a consolidated way. The following 17 of 28 Member States had sent answers at this point in time: AT, BG, DK, EE, FI, GR, HR, HU, IE, LV, NL, PL, SE, SI, SK and UK. Responses from CY, CZ, LT and RO were received with delay and will be inserted into the final report of the Project Group. It was agreed to send a reminder to the Member States which have not responded so far in order to provide a complete picture regarding the current situation and volumes in the Member States as a basis for future decision making. V. Presentation by Estonian Customs on the current practice of Guarantee Management in Estonia (CIRCABC) Ms Kutberg held a presentation of the Estonian guarantee management system currently in use. Guarantees are administered by the Revenue Department of the Estonian Tax and Customs Board. The system is capable to manage guarantees transaction based on a case by case basis within the standard declaration procedure as well as for given periods of time as required e.g. for simplified procedures and deferred payment (on a monthly base). The system furthermore supports different forms of guarantees, in particular by providing an undertaking by a guarantor and cash deposits as well as pledges of registered securities 2/5
(mortgage), in particular by real estate. Other forms of guarantees than the aforementioned are not covered by national legislation. At the moment the Estonian guarantee management system administrates the following guarantee volumes separated by the form of guarantee and the functional area a given guarantee is used for: Guarantee by a guarantor Mortgage Deposit Number Sum Number Sum Number Sum Customs + excise 186 53,3 36 26,7 234 5,9 Transit 68 9,7 VAT securities in fuel sector 32 8,8 3 0,24 60 1,5 For other charges than import and export duty the Estonian Tax and Customs Administration applies an own algorithm on guarantee reductions which is based on two coefficients in a range of 0.1 to 1, taking into account the risk of the procedure and the trustworthiness of the economic operator. A calculation example can be found on slide 6 of the presentation. As from 1 May 2016 the coefficient of trustworthiness of an economic operator will be adapted to the legally defined levels of potential guarantee reduction in accordance with Article 95 (2) and (3) UCC, Article 84 DA and Article 158 IA. Regarding the monitoring of guarantees or guarantee reference amounts transaction based monitoring is supported and applied by the system for deferred payment accounts used for incurred customs debts upon accepted declarations for free circulation and for temporary admission. Any other procedures are monitored in an audit-based way. Undertakings of guarantors are in accordance with national legislation valid for one year only. For this reason the examination of the financial situation of economic operators is also synchronously performed once a year. The current guarantee management system (called GARA) supports guarantees for the following functional areas: Customs procedure related guarantees Excise warehouse and excise/tax stamps guarantees 3/5
VAT securities for fuel sellers Securities for instalments Guarantees for liability assumptions VI. Discussion on the draft of the final report a. Common understanding of the legal provisions, remaining issues from the discussion from the third meeting The Commission reopened the discussion by informing about the achieved internal agreement with regard to the requirement of a guarantee for an authorisation of a special procedure. Since the authorisation allows in the vast majority of the cases for multiple transactions, a required guarantee at the level of authorisation can only be provided as a comprehensive guarantee. For authorisations for special procedures which are granted in a simplified way by releasing the goods upon an accepted customs declaration individual guarantees can be used for the reason that authorisation and customs declaration/transaction are in a one-to-one relationship. To avoid that an economic operator applies for and establishes a comprehensive guarantee in order to fulfil this requirement for an authorisation for a special procedure, but this authorisation cannot be granted for another reason, it is foreseen to grant such an authorisation when all requirements except the provision of a guarantee are fulfilled. The authorisation then becomes applicable only when the guarantee was established. This processing will avoid that economic operators will have to bear costs for guarantors although the authorisation it was provided for will never be granted. b. SWOT analysis on system architecture approach, input from the Project Group The members of the project group where asked in the third meeting to provide written additions and comments on the statements of the SWOT analysis ahead of the fourth meeting. Since no written comments were received in time the members were asked for their contributions during the meeting. The following statements were made and agreed on: A new chapter will be inserted between current chapters 5 and 6 in the report. This chapter will deal with the initial functional requirements for the system in order to provide the readership of the report with a better introduction regarding the assessment of the different architecture approaches and the related SWO analysis. The alternative in the current chapter 6 of the report will be split into two alternatives for a centralised system. One alternative will be a system fully operated by the Commission, the other operated by a joint initiative from a group of Member States. In the list of strengths of a centralised system the statement on "fast and uniform access " will be reduced to "Uniform access ". In the list of weaknesses of a centralised system a statement will be added that Member States will still have cost for adaptations and adjustments of national systems. In the list of threats for a central system two statements will be added regarding the lack of resources of the Commission with regard to develop, deploy and operate such a central system and regarding the risk that availability requirements might not be met by the Commission. VII. Organisation of the next meeting in Poland 4/5
The invitation with an annex containing practical information was published on CIRCABC on 16 March 2016. It will be held on 1 and 2 June 2016 in Cracow. VIII. AOB Two further legal issues were raised by project group members. PL asked a question regarding the future application of Article 94 (1) UCC. This Article stipulates an approval of the guarantor by the customs authorities, except in cases where the guarantor is a credit institution, financial institution or an insurance company accredited in the Union in accordance with the corresponding Union provisions in force. PL asked for an official source in order to identify whether the guarantor is already accredited under the Union provisions in force. The Commission answered that this can be validated via the URL: https://ww.eba.europa.eu/risk-analysis-and-data/credit-institutionsregister. IT and LT raised the question about the contact point to be established by the national customs authorities for the transitional period as required in Article 3(2) of the TDA. The chairman promised that this will be clarified with the Unit in charge and be answered in the next meeting. IX. Conclusion and final remarks by European Commission The chairman invited the project group members to provide contributions to the draft final report until end of April 2016. The updated draft report document will then be sent to the project group members mid of May 2016 in order to provide sufficient time for preparation in respect of the final discussion on the report during the meeting in Cracow. He finally thanked the Estonian host administration for the kind hospitality and the good organisation of the meeting. 5/5