Streamlined compliance procedures and scope for operations across multiple countries
The trade agreements concluded or negotiated by the EU in recent years focus on simplification
One aspect concerns proof of preferential origin. In the new-generation agreements, the traditional EUR.1 movement certificate is now obsolete. It is a document issued by the customs authority of the exporting country , at the operator’s request, following verification of the rules of origin for the individual consignment (subject to simplifications).
Under the most recent agreements, the burden of proof rests solely and directly with the economic operators involved in the trade, who are, in return, required to ensure that their organisation is adequate and reliable. The preferential tariff treatment may therefore be claimed in two ways: either through a declaration of origin issued by an authorised exporter (registered in the Rex system as a Registered Exporter) or on the basis of the ‘importer’s knowledge’.
The Rex authorisation enables the exporter to certify the preferential origin of the products by means of invoice declaration or in another commercial document suitable for identifying the goods. The Rex system, which has been in operation since 2017 and is also used in other contexts (GSP), is overseen by the European Commission and the competent authorities of the contracting countries, which are responsible for authorising operators, subject to verification of the eligibility criteria; regular registration in the register can be verified using the tools provided by the European Commission.
The ‘importer’s knowledge’, on the other hand, requires the importer to declare that, at the time of the customs declaration for import, they already have concrete and verifiable information regarding the origin of the goods (production process, country of manufacture, tariff classification, value and origin of the materials used). This approach is generally feasible for importers who, for various reasons (such as belonging to the same corporate group), have access to the necessary data. It was first applied in the agreement with Japan and is rarely used in general.
Many older agreements contain a prohibition on drawback, which prevents products manufactured from non-originating materials – on which tariffs have not been paid, as they benefited from a duty suspension scheme or duty refund – from qualifying for preferential treatment. In more recent agreements, this prohibition is often relaxed or removed, with favourable effects on supply chains and trade.
