# Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 612/2013Show full title

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 612/2013 of 25 June 2013 on the operation of the register of economic operators            and tax warehouses, related statistics and reporting pursuant to Council Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 on administrative cooperation            in the field of excise duties         

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U.K.

# Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 612/2013                     

# of 25 June 2013

# on the operation of the register of economic operators and tax warehouses, related statistics and reporting pursuant to Council                        Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties                     

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Council Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 of 2 May 2012 on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties                           and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2073/2004(1), and in particular Article 22 and Article 34(5) thereof,                        

Whereas:

(1)Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 establishes a framework for the simplification and the strengthening of administrative cooperation                              between Member States in the field of excise duties.

(2)Article 21 of Council Directive 2008/118/EC of 16 December 2008 concerning the general arrangements for excise duty and repealing                              Directive 92/12/EEC(2) requires the verification of the details of a draft electronic administrative document by the Member State of dispatch before                              excise goods may be moved under duty suspension. Commission Regulation (EC) No 684/2009 of 24 July 2009 implementing Council                              Directive 2008/118/EC as regards the computerised procedures for the movement of excise goods under suspension of excise duty(3) specifies the content of the draft electronic administrative document. Since the information in that administrative document                              relating to excise authorisations is subject to verification against the details of the corresponding national registers the                              details of each national register should be made available to each Member State of dispatch regularly and should be kept up                              to date.

(3)The information contained in the national registers concerning economic operators engaged in moving excise goods under duty                              suspension arrangements is to be automatically exchanged through a central register of economic operators (Central Register)                              to be operated by the Commission as provided for in Article 19(4) of Regulation (EU) No 389/2012.

(4)To facilitate the exchange of information through the Central Register it is necessary to lay down the structure and content                              of the standard formats to be used, including the codes to be entered into those formats.

(5)To ensure that the available data in the Central Register is correct and automatically updated, the central excise liaison                              office or liaison department should notify and forward modifications of their national registers to the Central Register.

(6)In order for the data stored in the national registers to be correct and up-to-date, the central excise liaison office or                              liaison department should update the national register on the same day that a modification to an authorisation occurs and                              should forward modifications to the Central Register without delay.

(7)In order to ensure that Member States have an accurate copy of the details of other national registers the central excise                              liaison office or designated liaison department should arrange for the regular and timely receipt of new modifications from                              the Central Register.

(8)It is necessary for economic operators to have a means to verify that their authorisation details have been accurately processed                              and distributed by the Central Register and to check the details of a trading partner before submitting a draft electronic                              administrative document. In order to enable such verification of the validity of the excise numbers as provided for in Article                              20(1) of Regulation (EU) No 389/2012, the Commission should provide the necessary key details of an authorisation kept in                              the Central Register upon production of a valid unique excise number. Moreover, rules for correcting inaccurate information                              in relation to the authorisation of an economic operator should be laid down.

(9)To ensure that the Central Register is being operated efficiently, the guaranteed maximum time to process a notification of                              the modification of a national register or a common request, it is necessary to specify the level of availability of the Central                              Register and of the national registers as well as the circumstances under which the availability or performance of the Central                              Register or the national registers may be allowed to fall below these levels.

(10)In order to provide for the evaluation of the operation of the Central Register the Commission should extract statistical                              information from the register and deliver it to the Member States on a monthly basis.

(11)In order to allow the Commission and the Member States adequate time to make arrangements to be able to meet obligations concerning                              time limits and the availability of services required by this Regulation the application of Articles 8, 9 and 10 should be                              deferred until 1 January 2015.

(12)The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on Excise Duty,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

## Article 1U.K.Messages exchanged by means of the computerised system relating to the national and central registers

1.The structure and the content of messages relating to the registration of economic operators and tax warehouses in the national                        registers and in the Central Register shall comply with Annex I.                  

Those messages shall be exchanged by means of the computerised system.

2.The messages referred to in paragraph 1 shall be exchanged for the following purposes:                  

(a)notification of modifications of national registers sent by the central excise liaison offices and the liaison departments                        to the Central Register;                  

(b)notification of modifications of the Central Register sent to national registers;                  

(c)requests made by central excise liaison offices and the liaison departments for details of modifications to the Central Register;                  

(d)requests made by central excise liaison offices and the liaison departments for statistical information extracted from the                        Central Register;                  

(e)forwarding by the Commission to the requesting Member States of statistical information extracted from the Central Register.                  

3.Where codes are required for the completion of certain data fields in the messages referred to in paragraph 1, the codes listed                        in Annex II to this Regulation or in Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 684/2009 shall be used.                  

## Article 2U.K.Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

‘record’ means an entry in a national register or the Central Register referred to in Article 19(4) of Regulation (EU) No                              389/2012;                           

‘modification’ means the creation, update or invalidation of a record;

‘activation date’ means the date in a record set by the responsible Member State, from which date the record is available                              for use in electronic verification in all Member States and from which the extracted details thereof are available for consultation                              for economic operators.                           

## Article 3U.K.Forwarding of modifications to the Central Register by the central excise liaison offices and the liaison departments

1.Each central excise liaison office or liaison department designated in accordance with Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 389/2012                        shall be responsible for the forwarding of modifications of its national register to the Central Register and for applying                        modifications to its national register that have been sent from the Central Register or that have been retrieved from the                        Central Register or both.                  

2.The Commission shall establish and maintain a list of the responsible central excise liaison offices or liaison departments                        on the basis of information provided by the Member States and shall make that list available to Member States.                  

3.Each central excise liaison office or liaison department shall forward notifications of any modifications of its national                        register to the Central Register at the latest on the activation date of the modification. The message to be used for modifications                        of national registers shall be the ‘Operations on the register of economic operators’ message set out in Table 2 of Annex                        I.                  

## Article 4U.K.Maintenance of the Central Register and forwarding of modifications to national registers

1.When receiving an ‘Operations on the register of economic operators’ message from a central excise liaison office or liaison                        department containing a notification of a modification to a national register the Commission shall verify that the structure                        and content of the message comply with Table 2 of Annex I.                  

2.Where the structure and content of the message referred to in paragraph 1 comply with Table 2 of Annex I, the following actions                        shall be carried out:                  

(a)the Commission shall register the modification in the Central Register without delay;                  

(b)a notification shall be sent to each Member State of which the central excise liaison office or liaison department is registered                        to receive notifications of modifications using the ‘Operations on the register of economic operators’ message set out in                        Table 2 of Annex I.                  

3.Where the structure or content of the ‘Operations on the register of economic operators’ message referred to in paragraph                        1 does not comply with Table 2 of Annex I the Commission shall return the notification to the central excise liaison office                        or liaison department that forwarded the notification using the ‘Refusal of update of economic operators’ message set out                        in Table 3 of Annex I, with a reason code specifying the reason for the refusal.                  

4.Upon receipt of a ‘Refusal of update of economic operators’ message the central excise liaison office or liaison department                        shall carry out any necessary corrective action without delay and resubmit the notification.                  

5.The central excise liaison office or liaison department of each Member State that is not registered to receive notifications                        of modifications from the Commission shall request an extract of the modifications applied to the Central Register at least                        twice a day using the ‘Common request’ message set out in Table 1 of Annex I.                  

## Article 5U.K.Incorporation of modifications into national registers

1.At least twice a day the central excise liaison office or liaison department of each Member State shall incorporate modifications                        that have been received from the Central Register into its national register.                  

2.The modifications referred to in paragraph 1 shall be available for consultation by the central excise liaison office or liaison                        department as soon as they have been incorporated into the national register and shall be available for use in electronic                        verification from the activation date of the modification.                  

## Article 6U.K.Consultation of the Central Register by economic operators

1.At least twice a day the Commission shall prepare an extract from the Central Register of all active records. In preparing                        that extract the Commission shall remove any record that is not available for public consultation. The Commission shall also                        remove from any remaining record all details for each type of economic operator or premises thereof that do not correspond                        to the descriptions of extracted details of entries laid down in points (a), (b) and (c) of paragraph 3.                  

2.Economic operators may request the Commission for extracted details of a record by submitting the unique excise number referred                        to in point (a) of Article 19(2) of Regulation (EU) No 389/2012.                  

3.Where the unique excise number submitted corresponds to an excise number present in the extract of the Central Register the                        extracted details of the register shall be returned to the economic operator, who has made the request, in the following situations:                  

(a)if the unique excise number submitted corresponds to a record for an authorised warehouse keeper, a registered consignee or                        a registered consignor the extract shall contain any of the following:                  

the textual description of the operator type code (data group 2 e set out in Table 2 of Annex I);

at least one excise product category code (data group 2.4 a in the ‘Operations on the register of economic operators’ message)                              or at least one excise product code (data group 2.5 a set out in Table 2 of Annex I);                           

a combination of data groups 2.4 a and 2.5 a that is in conformance with the rules contained in the description set out in                              Table 2 of Annex I;                           

(b)if the unique excise number submitted corresponds to a record for a tax warehouse the extract shall indicate any of the following:                  

at least one excise product category code (data group 3.4 a set out in Table 2 of Annex I);

at least one excise product code (data group 3.5 a set out in Table 2 of Annex I);

a combination of data groups 3.4 a and 3.5 a that is in conformance with the rules contained in the description set out in                              Table 2 of Annex I;                           

(c)if the unique excise number submitted corresponds to a registered consignee that falls under point (h) of Article 19(2) of                        Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 the extract shall in addition to the data provided in point (a) contain the following information:                  

the expiry date of the authorisation (data group 4 c set out in Table 2 of Annex I);

whether the authorisation may be used for more than one movement (data group 4 d in Table 2 of Annex I);

at least one set of temporary authorisation details (data group 4.3 set out in Table 2 of Annex I).

4.Where there is no correspondence between the unique excise number submitted and the extract of the Central Register the economic                        operator, who has made the request, shall be informed.                  

5.If an economic operator claims that a record relating to his authorisation is missing or is incorrect the Commission shall                        on request inform him on how to make a request for a correction of the record and provide the contact details of the central                        excise liaison office or liaison department of the responsible Member State.                  

## Article 7U.K.Statistical information and reports

1.The statistical information to be extracted by the Commission from the Central Register in accordance with Article 34(5) of                        Regulation (EU) No 389/2012 shall be the following:                  

(a)the number of active and inactive economic operators records;                  

(b)the number of pending expirations of authorisations, being the total number of authorisations that will expire in the following                        month or in the following quarter;                  

(c)the types of economic operators, the number of economic operators, by type, and the number of tax warehouses;                  

(d)the number of authorised economic operators by product and by product category;                  

(e)the number of modifications to excise authorisations.                  

On the basis of the statistical information referred to in the first subparagraph the Commission shall prepare a monthly report                     for the Member States.                  

2.Any central excise liaison office or liaison department may request the Commission to prepare a specific statistical report                        on the central register. That request shall be made using the ‘Common request’ message set out in Table 1 of Annex I. The                        Commission shall reply by using the ‘SEED statistics’ message set out in Table 4 of Annex I.                  

## Article 8U.K.Time limit for processing notifications of national register modifications and common requests

1.Within two hours of receipt of a notification of a modification of a national register the Commission shall process that modification                        in accordance with Article 4.                  

2.Within two hours of receipt of a ‘Common Request’ message set out in Table 1 of Annex I, the Commission shall provide the                        requested information to the requesting central excise liaison office or liaison department.                  

## Article 9U.K.Availability

The Central Register and the national registers shall be available at all times.

## Article 10U.K.Limit to service obligations

The service obligations of the Commission and the Member States laid down in Articles 8 and 9 do not apply under the following                     duly justified circumstances:                  

the Central Register or a national register is unavailable due to hardware or telecommunication failures;

network problems occurs which are not under the direct control of the Commission or the Member State concerned;

force majeure;

scheduled maintenance notified at least forty-eight hours before the planned start of the maintenance period.

## Article 11U.K.Entry into force

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the *Official Journal of the European Union*.                  

Articles 8, 9 and 10 shall apply from 1 January 2015.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 25 June 2013.

*For the Commission*                            

*The President*                            

José Manuel Barroso                            

## ANNEX IU.K.**ELECTRONIC MESSAGES USED FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF THE REGISTER OF ECONOMIC OPERATORS EXPLANATORY NOTES**

### 1.The data elements of the electronic messages used for the purpose of the computerised system are structured in data groups                        and, where applicable, data subgroups. Details regarding the data elements and their use are presented in the tables of this                        Annex, in which:U.K.

column A provides the numeric code (number) attributed to each data group and data subgroup; each subgroup follows the sequence                              number of the data (sub)group of which it forms part (for example: where the data group number is 1, one data subgroup of                              this group is 1.1 and one data subgroup of this subgroup is 1.1.1);                           

column B provides the alphabetic code (letter) attributed to each data element in a data (sub)group;

column C identifies the data (sub)group or data element;

column D provides each data (sub)group or data element with a value indicating whether the insertion of the corresponding                              data is:                           

‘R’ (Required), meaning that the data must be provided. When a data (sub)group is ‘O’ (Optional) or ‘C’ (Conditional), data                                       elements within that group can still be ‘R’ (Required) when the competent authorities of the Member State have decided that                                       the data in this (sub)group must be completed or when the condition applies;                                    

‘O’ (Optional), meaning that the insertion of the data is optional for the person submitting the message (the consignor or                                       consignee) except where a Member State has stipulated that the data are required in accordance with the option provided for                                       in column E for some of the optional data (sub)groups or data elements;                                    

‘C’ (Conditional), meaning that the use of the data (sub)group or data element depends on other data (sub)groups or data elements                                       in the same message;                                    

‘D’ (Dependent), meaning that the use of the data (sub)group or data element depends on a condition which cannot be checked                                       by the computerised system, as provided for in columns E and F;                                    

column E provides the condition(s) for data whose insertion is conditional, specifies the use of the optional and dependent                              data where applicable and indicates which data must be provided by the competent authorities;                           

column F provides explanations, where necessary, concerning the completion of the message;

column G provides:

for some data (sub)groups a number followed by the character ‘x’ indicating how many times the data (sub)group can be repeated                                       in the message (default = 1);                                    

for each data element, except for data elements indicating the time or the date or both, the characteristics identifying the                                       data type and the data length. The codes for the data types are as follows:                                    
                      -  a alphabetic; 
                      -  n numeric; 
                      -  an alphanumeric. 

The number following the code provides the admissible data length for the data element concerned. The optional two dots before                                       the length indicator mean that the data have no fixed length, but can have up to a number of digits, as specified by the length                                       indicator. A comma in the data length means that the data can hold decimals, the digit before the comma provides the total                                       length of the attribute, and the digit after the comma provides the maximum number of digits after the decimal point.                                    

for data elements indicating the time or the date or both, the mention ‘date’, ‘time’ or ‘dateTime’, meaning that the date,                                       the time or the date and time must be given using the ISO 8601 standard for representation of dates and time.                                    

### 2.The following abbreviations are used in the tables of this Annex:U.K.

:

electronic administrative document;

:

administrative reference code;

:

System for Exchange of Excise Data (the electronic database referred to in Article 19(1) of Regulation (EU) No 389/2012;

:

Combined Nomenclature Code.

### 3.The following definitions are used in the tables of this Annex:U.K.

‘Start Date’ means ‘Authorisation Start Date’ or ‘Validity Start Date’;

‘End Date’ means ‘Authorisation End Date’ or ‘Validity End Date’;

‘Authorisation Start Date’ means the date from which an economic operator is authorised by the responsible Member State to                              produce, store, send or receive excise goods under duty suspension;                           

‘Authorisation End Date’ means the date from which an economic operator is no longer authorised by the responsible Member                              State;                           

‘Validity Start Date’ means the date from which the premises of an economic operator have been declared by the responsible                              Member State to be valid as a location to produce, send or receive excise goods under duty suspension;                           

‘Validity End Date’ means the date from which the premises of an economic operator cease to be valid.

#### *Table 1*

**Common request**

(referred to in Articles 4, 7 and 8)

#### *Table 2*

**Operations on the register of economic operators**

(referred to in Articles 3, 4 and 6)

#### *Table 3*

**Refusal of update of economic operators**

(referred to in Article 4)

#### *Table 4*

**SEED statistics**

(referred to in Article 7)

## ANNEX IIU.K.**LIST OF CODES**

### Code list 1: Trader Excise Number/Tax Warehouse Reference

Field 1 is taken from the list of <MEMBER STATES> (point 3 of Lists of Codes, Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 684/2009,).

Field 2 must be filled with a unique identifier for the Excise registered operator (authorised warehouse keeper, registered                     consignee and registered consignor) or for the tax warehouse. The way this value is assigned falls under the responsibility                     of Member States’ authorities, but each Excise registered operator (authorised warehouse keeper, registered consignee and                     registered consignor) and each tax warehouse must have a unique excise number.                  

### Code list 2: Temporary Authorisation Reference

The temporary authorisation reference has the same structure as the Trader Excise Number/Tax Warehouse Reference

Field 1 is taken from the list of <MEMBER STATES> (point 3 of Lists of Codes, Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 684/2009).

Field 2 must be filled with a unique identifier for the Excise registered operator (authorised warehouse keeper, registered                     consignee and registered consignor) or for the tax warehouse. The way this value is assigned falls under the responsibility                     of Member States’ authorities, but each Excise registered operator (authorised warehouse keeper, registered consignee and                     registered consignor) and each tax warehouse must have a unique excise number.                  

### Code list 3: Excise Product Categories

1

OJ L 121, 8.5.2012, p. 1.                           

2

OJ L 9, 14.1.2009, p. 12.                           

3

OJ L 197, 29.7.2009, p. 24.