Emerging Issues in European Customs Law

In 1968 the Customs of the six founding Member States of the European Economic Union (EEC) had already been harmonised to such a degree that the customs payable by third countries could be established on the basis of a common customs tariff. Since it was no longer possible to levy customs duties on goods traded between Member States, there existed a customs tariff union between the founding Member States of the modern European Community long before the creation of the European internal market. However, by itself the creation of a common customs tariff was not enough to realise a customs union as a fundamental characteristic of the European internal market. The EEC Treaty already required customs law to be harmonised in addition to tariffs. For many years rules governing customs law were scattered among a number of Regulations and sometimes differed. However, in 1994 the Community Customs Code (CC) and the Regulation laying down provisions for the implementation of the Community Customs Code created a uniform European customs law binding on all Member States. This has now provided a sound basis for achieving uniformity in customs matters of 27 countries.