The Council's position at first reading, therefore,
amends the original Commission proposal by partially redrafting it
on the basis of the agreement reached with the European
Parliament.
In parallel, the European Parliament voted 53
amendments to the Commission proposal.
The Council has introduced a number amendments to the
original proposal and has substantially modified the structure
of the text.
As regards the key policy issues, the Council
has:
- amended the definition of "customs legislation" in
line of Regulation
(EU) No 952/2013 and added the definitions of "customs
territory of the Union" and of "carriers";
- clarified the rules on the admissibility of
evidence in administrative and judicial
proceedings;
- clarified the objective, content and use of the
directories established under this Regulation: (i) Member States
should have the same level of access than the Commission to the CSM
Directory; (ii) data concerning export of shipments of sensitive
goods, such as tobacco and tobacco products, alcohol and alcoholic
beverages and energy products, should be reported by carriers in
the Container Status Messages (CSMs) directory; (iii) the
possibility to transfer selected data from the "import, export and
transit directory" to international organisations or EU agencies
has been withdrawn;
- provided for a clarification of the rules related to
those movements of containers that should not be reported in
the CSM Directory;
- streamlined data protection rules in accordance
with Regulation (EC) No 45/2011;
- clarified that documents supporting import and
export declarations should be provided by Member States, upon
request by the Commission, and that such request should be dealt
with within a period of four weeks;
- stipulated that data included in the Customs
Information System (CIS) should be stored for a period of
maximum five years, with an additional two years if
justified;
- provided for an assessment by the Commission,
two years after the entry into force of the Regulation, of the
necessity to extend the export data and the data on land and air
movements in the relevant directories;
- set the date of application on 1 September
2016, taking into account the delegated and implementing acts
to be adopted, and the preparatory tasks to be completed by Member
States.