The new European customs provisions 2016

Although Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council came into force in October 2013, certain legislative provisions of this regulation were set to go into effect on May 1, 2016.

At a national level, these new regulations have been implemented in the Romanian legislation through two legislative acts of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration published in the Official Gazette in early July, namely Order no. 1882/2016 approving the extended use of electronic signatures to customs formalities for goods imported and exported to and from the European Union through customs offices in Romania and Order No. 1884/2016 approving the Technical regulations authorizing the special regimes.

These changes, according to the president of ANAF, were designed to streamline the economic activity and to provide protection to the domestic market, the most targeted being companies that carry out operations of import and export within the European Union.

Thus, Order no. 1882/2016 implements the extensive use of electronic signatures to customs formalities for imported and exported goods to and from the European Union through customs offices in Romania, this order settling in art. 2 that the legal regime of the electronic signature used in the extended customs formalities for goods imported and exported to and from the European Union through customs offices in Romania is provided by Law no. 455/2001 regarding the electronic signature.

Order No. 1884/2016 implements the technical rules for the authorization of special regimes, as regulated at the European level.

Art. 4 of the technical rules for the authorization of special regimes stipulates that a special regime may be authorized by:

◦ a standard customs declaration, verbal or through another action, of an ATA or CPD; or

◦ a request made under the pattern and instructions stipulated by the regulation.

Art. 5 of the same rules states that a special regime may be authorized on the basis of a customs declaration, provided it is accompanied by a document containing the following information:

◦ nature of the processing or use of the goods;

◦ technical description of goods and / or processed products and means of identifying them;

◦ estimated period for discharge;

◦ proposed office of discharge (except the final destination);

◦ place of processing or use.

Furthermore, the request for authorization must be completed using the electronic management application of special regimes, found on the website of the General Customs Directorate www.customs.ro, under the "economic agents / use of the customs information system" section. The request registered in the software application is printed, signed by the applicant and filed to the competent customs authorities with the necessary documents for authorization.

It is useful to know that art. 10 para. (3) from the above mentioned rules presents the cases where the application for authorization is needed, namely when:

◦ the declaration of goods is done via a simplified declaration or by the registration in the declarant's records;

◦ an authorization involving more than one Member State is required, except where the request is regarding the temporary admission regime;

◦ an examination of the economic conditions is required;

◦ the application concerns the processing of goods and sensitive products;

◦ an authorization with effect is required, unless it is required for outward processing;

◦ the authorization of customs warehousing regime is required;

◦ the use of equivalent goods is requested.

The application for authorization must be filed to the customs authority competent for the place in which the main accounts for customs purposes of the applicant is kept or available and where at least some of the processing, specific use or storage operations are to be ongoing.

In case the regime is claimed by a person who is not established in the customs territory of the Eruopean Union, the application is submitted to the competent customs office for the place where the goods are to be used first for the active destination or inward regime.

The competent customs authority has the obligation to communicate to the applicant if the application has been accepted or not, and the authorization shall be issued without delay and no later than 30 days from the date that the application was accepted. The date of acceptance of the application, under the rules previously invoked, is the date on which all the necessary information has been received by the customs authority.

For additional, updated information regarding the new customs rules as provided by the Order no. 1882/2016 and 1884/2016 of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration, don’t hesitate to contact one of the lawyers within the law firm Darie, Manea & associates.