Members heard a presentation of the main conclusions of the Commission's letter to the Chair of the Customs Union Working Party of 4 September 2014, which responded to his requested clarifications concerning the Commission proposed provision for carriers to provide Container Status Messages data (CSMs) for containers exiting the EU. While being aware that the Parliament adopted its first reading position which did not include export CSMs, Commission underlined that export CSM involve mostly negligible or zero additional costs for carriers (taking into consideration that they already would be submitting import CSMs) and could facilitate both combating fraud-related importation of specific goods (e.g. cigarettes) and the implementation of targeted export controls and verification of destination of sensitive exports.
The Rapporteur explained that Parliament's views were clear on this issue and stressed the need to protect data and to prevent their misuse. A Member indicated that Parliament already voted and rejected the inclusion of export CSMs, and saw no essential reason that would justify a change of its position. Responding to concerns about the protection of export data and their sensitive nature, the Commission underlined that part of CSM data were already available in the public domain and its proposal included strong safeguards to ensure confidentiality for other data. Commission also underlined that the Council text supported the inclusion of export CSMs, not the bulk of export CSMs but only a limited number of categories, and recalled that export CSMs did not contain personal data but only data on physical container movements. Regarding common rules on customs infringements and sanctions, the Commission said that current Regulation 515/1997 established the basis for Member States to open investigations and enquiries not linked to the fight against customs fraud.
The Chair concluded by underlining that there should be strong reasons in trialogue to change Parliament’s views, away from its first reading position adopted by a large majority.
Source : © European Union, 2014 - EP