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Taxation and Customs Union
News article16 February 2021Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union

UCC Work Programme Progress Report 2020

Commission publishes the second report on the progress in developing the electronic systems provided for under Article 278a of the Union Customs Code (UCC).

Commission publishes the second report on the progress in developing the electronic systems provided for under Article 278a of the Union Customs Code (UCC).

On 14 December 2020, the European Commission published a report on the progress achieved in the development of the electronic systems under the UCC since its entry into force on 1 May 2016. This report was submitted to the Council and the European Parliament.

The UCC prescribes moving fully to a paperless environment for customs formalities. The Commission and Member States are working intensively to implement the electronic systems envisaged under the UCC. Once those systems are in place, all contacts between economic operators and customs authorities, and between customs authorities, will be carried out electronically and this will speed up and streamline customs clearance. A considerable number of these systems have been deployed by 2020, with the rest to be progressively deployed by 2025. This report also identifies the risks associated with these developments and outlines the mitigating actions which are envisaged to address these.

The Commission concludes that tangible progress is being made in ensuring the full deployment of the electronic systems by the relevant deadlines. A sizable number of electronic systems have already been deployed and are now fully operational. The INF SP project was successfully deployed in 2020 and significant progress has been made on finalising the specifications for several other projects. The remaining ones are mostly on track and planned to be completed in the period 2021-2025 in line with the planning of the projects defined in the UCC Work Programme. Challenges and risks have been reported by the Member States mainly in the area of the national projects on the customs formalities related to the entry of goods. The situation with the upgrade of the national import systems shows good progress following the mitigating measures taken and all Member States are on track to meet the deployment deadline of 2022. Also the risk identified in last year’s report over the Annex B data harmonisation process has now been addressed by amendments proposed to the UCC-DA and UCC-IA to be adopted in early 2021.

Read the staff working document

Details

Publication date
16 February 2021
Author
Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union