Develop further the cooperation arrangements between customs and other competent authorities, with a view to ensuring complementarity of roles in supply chain risk management

The previous cooperation and coordination between enforcement authorities at EU level on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) infringements has led to the seizure of millions of fake and possibly harmful products and helped take down several transnational criminal networks. The Intellectual Property Crime Coordinated Coalition (IPC3) set up within Europol and co-funded by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) was at the forefront of such efforts. The IPC3 centre provides operational and technical support to law enforcement agencies and other partners in the EU. The Customs Cooperation Working Party has been given a mandate to take action in the policy area of IPR infringements under its 2018-2019 action plan (point 9.5 ‘Fight against IPR infringements’). The draft mandates were adopted on 31 January 2018. Future action would identify examples of IPR infringements and analyse links with the Organised Crime Group (OCG)’s activities. The main objectives would therefore be to: ·map trafficking routes, get a clearer picture on the illicit traffic of counterfeit packaging items and detect the groups involved in the intra-EU trade of assembled products; ·identify the major risks associated with infringement practices; ·improve cooperation between law enforcement, customs and police bodies and market surveillance authorities; ·increase the exchange of information and best practices. There will be a two-year activity period (from January 2018), with an interim report expected in early 2019. Coordination with the European Commission will be through the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the Commission Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD). On Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT), guidelines have been completed and may be subject to review in 2018. The guidelines explicitly refer to the use of risk management in profiling and controls in this sector. In 2016, the Commission adopted a Regulation setting out a preliminary correlation table between customs and waste codes. This table is intended to step up the enforcement of the Waste Shipment Regulation whereby customs officials would be able to identify potential waste streams more easily. The table has been intended to serve as a tool to assist curbing illegal exports of waste out of the EU. In addition, the Guidelines on Waste Controls have been completed and published. They refer explicitly to risk-based targeting and controls. Both sets of guidelines are very important to cooperation between customs authorities and competent authorities in the implementation of the relevant legislation. E Policy cycle and the ninth CCWP action plan — involvement of the customs authorities In May 2017, the EU adopted new priorities on crime for the 2018-2021 EU policy cycle for the combat of serious international and organised crime. Customs authorities’ involvement in implementing the policy cycle increased on previous years, but their participation is still selective and limited to some crime priorities (mainly excise/ Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud and environmental crime priorities). In addition, the commitment of customs authorities differs between Member States (only four Member States participated in the drafting of more than four operational action plans in 2018). Synergies between the 2018-2021 EU policy cycle and the ninth CCWP action plan (2018-2020) were further strengthened: complementary actions are led by the same actors, joint police and customs operations have been organised, etc.. Furthermore, the ninth CCWP action plan includes action on ‘Better integration of customs in the EU Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (EU SOCTA)’ covering not only customs participation in the EU SOCTA, but also broader cooperation between customs and Europol, focusing on identifying areas where improvement is needed, best practices, and development and preparation of awareness raising/training.  Cooperation with Europol Europol is further developing its cooperation with customs authorities. The report on the implementation of the ‘Strategic Review: Europol and customs’ confirmed the need to further strengthen the presence of customs officials in Europol, including the need for customs to be able to access Europol’s information systems (SIENA). Europol also annually organises a meeting of directors of customs agencies under the aegis of the European Police Chiefs Convention. In the last two years, the Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) has been in contact with Europol to encourage the exchange of specific risk information taken from CRMS and from SIENA. As a result CRMS/RIFs were issued on counterfeit banknotes, forged authorisation documents used to procure firearms from legal dealers and on weapons parts and a 3D printer machine used to produce weapons parts. All have received feedback from Member States’ customs authorities and have been integrated in their targeting systems. In addition, DG TAXUD (with the support of the Member States) provided to Europol a detailed analysis of EU trends in narcotics trafficking, based on seizures by EU customs in 2014 and 2015. The cooperation between the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and Europol was further strengthened. OLAF is an associated service for Europol’s COPY analysis project dealing with organised crime on IPR. In accordance to the Europol Regulation, OLAF has indirect access to information in Europol databases. OLAF also recently signed with Europol a memorandum of understanding on secure communication and was connected to the SIENA system. This is expected to facilitate communication between these two bodies. As regards operational cooperation in the last few years, several joint police and customs operations have been organised, focusing on different crime areas. One such operation was the ARMSTRONG II operation on firearms. Police and customs cooperation exists also in many Police and Customs Cooperation Centres (PCCCs). Among the 59 existing multinational cooperation centres, around a half include one or more customs representatives. The ‘single points of contact’ (SPOCs), located mainly in international police cooperation departments, serve as a single contact point for all international police cooperation requests. Here also, the presence of customs officials is vital. Both SPOCs and PCCCs have as one of their main tasks to ensure information exchange on cross-border crime. Food safety and consumer health Food safety and consumer health are addressed in the recent Council/EP Regulation on official controls. The Commission is currently preparing a delegated act and an implementing act for that Regulation. The responsible working group meets regularly and work will continue throughout 2018. The delegated act and implementing act should apply as of 14 December 2019. Cooperation has been constructive. A third consultation with Member States took place on 18 and 19 January 2018. Similar consultations will be scheduled every 2 months. Food fraud has a clear impact on consumer health and trust towards the food industry. Following some high-profile scandals (e.g. mislabelled horse meat) the issue has become politically sensitive. Animal, food, feed and plant health and safety Since the end of 2016, the administrative assistance and cooperation system (a dedicated IT application known as the ‘AAC’) available to the Member States for exchanging cases has been split into two strands, one dealing with non-compliance classified as fraudulent activities along the agro-food chain (AAC-FF) and the other dealing with any other non-compliance (AAC-AA). In 2017, a total of 775 cases were exchanged through the AAC, of which 597 in the AAC-AA and 178 in the AAC-FF. The fact that this number is considerably higher than in 2016, when approximately 240 cases were exchanged, is partly due to the fact that under an EU coordinated control programme on online offered food products, the Member States were asked to identify websites which offer for sale specific types of products that are clearly not in compliance with the EU food law and to use the AAC-AA to report these cases. COI certificates in TRACES The Commission services have developed the certificate of inspection (COI) on the new TRACES platform, TRACES NT. Following Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1842 of 14 October 2016, the COI certificate has been available since 19 April 2017, while the use of the TRACES NT platform has been mandatory since 19 October 2017. 40 000 certificates have been issued so far. Catch certificates in TRACES The Commission services are currently developing Catch (for the introduction of Catch certificates) on the new TRACES platform TRACES NT. The requirement for presenting paper Catch certificates upon imports of fishery products has been mandatory since 1 January 2010 in order to prevent imports of illegally caught fishery products into the EU. The Commission has introduced a legal obligation for importers to use Catch upon imports of fishery products. The purpose of Catch is to assist Member States' authorities in the verification and risk management of imports of fishery products into the EU. On average Member States receive more than 200 000 Catch certificates per year. New action envisaged: Food fraud network and the AAC system The creation of IMSOC (the Integrated Management System for Official Controls) will integrate the existing EU systems (RASFF, AAC, TRACES, ADNS, EUROPHYT) and streamline the procedures for the rapid exchange of data on official controls in the agro-food sector. The IMSOC will provide a generalised possibility to exchange information with customs (i.e. the EU single window with CERTEX for TRACES), and to receive feedback directly from third countries within the systems. Moreover, the IMSOC will be connected with each Member State’s national systems for all traceability requirements, so that there will always be a record in this system of what is coming into the EU. The dematerialisation of documentary controls at border for sanitary and phytosanitary reasons is also among the future actions. This will result in a very high quality and quantity of information in the relevant databases, which will be used to perform predictive analysis on consignments to determine the risk and streamline the frequency of controls. Health protection New official control legislation has been adopted and the Commission services are currently preparing the implementing and delegated acts related to the implementation of this Regulation. The intention is to adopt all the implementing acts and delegated acts before December 2019, especially the implementing act on Article 75 on Border Crossing Points (BCP)/customs cooperation. Environment In 2015, the Commission services, in cooperation with Member State competent authorities, prepared and published guidelines for customs officials to help them in the enforcement of the Waste Shipment Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 1013/2006). These guidelines, together with a special factsheet that was also prepared, are considered an important tool for customs officials when it comes to the control of waste entering, existing or transiting through the EU. The Commission plans to update the 2014 ‘Customs and FLEGT Implementation Guidelines’. Product compliance and safety Since the publication of the first progress report in 2016, a few more checklists were drawn up for products that are subject to EU harmonisation legislation (‘harmonised products’). The checklists will be used and updated on an ongoing basis.