Proposal for a Council Decision for a common position on the adoption of a Decision by the Joint Committee of the Convention of 20 May 1987 on a common transit procedure and the Joint Committee of the Convention of 20 May 1987 on the simplification of formalities in trade of goods concerning an invitation to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Republic of Slovenia to accede to these Conventions
Date: 2002-05-24
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EFTA countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Union transit, agreement (EU), carriage of goods, computer network, simplification of formalities, trading operation

26.11.2002

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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Proposal for a Council Decision for a common position on the adoption of a Decision by the Joint
Committee of the Convention of 20 May 1987 on a common transit procedure and the Joint
Committee of the Convention of 20 May 1987 on the simplification of formalities in trade of
goods concerning an invitation to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Republic of Slovenia to accede
to these Conventions

(2002/C 291 E/05)

COM(2002) 249 final — 2002/0113(ACC)

(Submitted by the Commission on 24 May 2002)

EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

The 1987 EC-EFTA Conventions on a common transit procedure and the simplification of formalities in
trade in goods (hereafter: the Conventions) by the candidate countries for accession to the EU currently
have 8 Contracting Parties: the EC, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and
Slovak Republic.

The following countries are interested in being invited to accede to the Conventions: Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey.

By its Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council of 31 May
2001 (1) the Commission has set out its strategy to prepare the candidate countries for accession to the
Conventions. Core of the Commission’s approach is that any country applying for accession to the
Conventions can only be invited to accede if it is able to implement the whole of the acquis on
common transit and the simplification of formalities (SAD) in force at the time, at legislative, operational
and computerisation level. On the latter point, the only countries that can be invited to accede to the
Conventions are those possessing a computerised transit system that meets the legal, technical and
in force at the time of the
financial requirements of the New Computerised Transit System (NCTS)
invitation.

Assessment of the countries’ compliance with the set standards shall be done on an individual basis and
will require an evaluation of the administrative capacity as well as conformance testing for the connection
to NCTS. The candidate countries, with the support of PHARE are currently undertaking the necessary
steps for the connection to NCTS at a date which is planned to occur in the next 18 months.

The EC, as Contracting Party to the Conventions, would have to establish a common position to agree to
the proposal to invite new candidate countries to accede to the Conventions by means of a Decision of the
Council on the basis of Article 133 of the EC Treaty. In order to be able to provide the legal basis for the
use of the common transit procedure as quickly as possible after proof has been provided that the
candidate country complies with the set conditions,
it would be preferable if the Council Decision
provides the basis of acceptance for a group of countries, starting with those countries which are
candidate for accession to the EU by 2004, leaving it to the Commission which represents the EC in
the Joint Committees to launch the invitation procedure for the accession of new partner countries.

The legal assurance from Community side, that the candidate countries’ compliance with the accession
criteria will immediately result in the possibility to accede to the Conventions, should for those countries,
in line with our computerisation and interconnectivity priorities under the Accession Partnership, be an
incentive to continue, or more likely to increase their efforts. The positive effects for the customs transit
procedure will remain even if accession of these countries to the EU is realised shortly afterwards, given
the fact that the Conventions are fully compatible with the Community acquis.

Accession to the Conventions will further strengthen the economic and political integration between the
EC and the candidate countries. Moreover, the use of the common transit procedure could be instrumental
to a more fluent phasing out of formalities at those borders which in future will become internal EC
borders. It will allow to anticipate to a situation which will occur after enlargement by reallocating control
activities from these future internal borders to the EC’s future external border and inland customs offices.

(1) COM(2001) 289 final.

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Finally, accession to the Conventions, under the principle of computerisation will further shift the balance
away from the use of the (paper-based) TIR transit system, towards a more modern, and fraud proof
Community/common transit system.

This Council decision should be the basis for the first invitation for accession to the Republic of Slovenia,
which should be ready to comply with the conditions for accession at the end of 2002. The Commission
will propose the decisions of the Joint Committees established by both Conventions, and launch the
procedure for the adoption of the invitations addressed to each candidate country, complying with the
technical conditions for accession to the Conventions after such accomplishment has been stated by the
Commission following consultations with the customs experts of the Member States.

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

HAS DECIDED AS FOLLOWS:

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Community, and in particular Article 133 in conjunction
with Article 300 (2) first sentence thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

(1) Whereas Article 15 of

the Convention on a common
transit procedure (1) empowers the Joint Committee set
up by that Convention to adopt by decision invitations
to third countries within the meaning of Article 3(1)(c)
to accede to that Convention in accordance with Article
15a.

(2) Whereas Article 11 of the Convention on the simplification
formalities in trade of goods (2) empowers the Joint
of
Committee set up by that Convention to adopt by
decision invitations to third countries within the meaning
of Article 3(1)(c)
to that Convention in
accordance with Article 11a,

to accede

Article 1

The Decisions of the EC-EFTA Joint Committee on common
transit concerning the invitations to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
and the Republic of Slovenia to accede to the Convention of
20 May 1987 on a common transit procedure which shall be
addressed to each of these countries in order to permit them to
accede to the Convention are hereby approved.

Article 2

The Decisions of the EC-EFTA Joint Committee on the simplifi-
cation of formalities in trade of goods concerning the invi-
tations to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Republic of
Slovenia to accede to the Convention of 20 May 1987 on
the simplification of formalities in trade of goods which shall
be addressed to each of these countries in order to permit them
to accede to the Convention are hereby approved.

Article 3

After the technical conditions for accession have been fulfilled
by each of the candidate countries the EC representative in the
Joint Committees shall propose the decisions to invite each of
them to accede to the Convention and vote on these decisions
in line with Articles 1 and 2.

(1) OJ L 226, 13.8.1987, p. 2.
(2) OJ L 134, 22.5.1987, p. 2.